Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Reconciliation and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The deficiencies in the Environment and Heritage Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006 that the government has brought into the House are extreme. The amendments that the member for Grayndler has moved are of real importance and need to be taken into account by the government.

I do note that in the original development of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, when Senator Hill was the environment minister, there was an extensive period of both consultation with and interaction between community groups, conservation organisations and other persons who had an interest in that legislation, as well as expertise and skill in that area. I would strongly urge the Minister for the Environment and Heritage, Senator Campbell, to take heed of the history of one of his predecessors in the way in which they actually took on board a number of the issues that were raised that were considered important. It is the case that there were some issues there that I did not think were satisfactorily resolved and there were deficiencies within the original bill—some of which have been addressed in this legislation, but very few. Notwithstanding that, the fact is that this legislation is complex in nature, it is a very large and bulky piece of legislation and it has come through in an extremely hasty fashion. There is an extremely important requirement that the community of interest—non-government organisations and others—have an opportunity, as the House also needs an opportunity, to properly consider the bill and to adequately deal with the amendments on the table, which will most likely go to the Senate as well.

The deficiencies in the bill before us have been identified in the member for Grayndler’s amendments. The Howard government has rushed the bill, without proper consultation. Importantly, it has failed to halt the decline in Australia’s natural environment. Here, critically, it is the Howard government’s current approach to conservation and environment protection that needs to be considered as we debate the bill.

There have been a number of concerns raised about the bill’s deficiencies. In particular, there are concerns about the reduction in ministerial accountability and opportunities for genuine public consultation. It is a fact that third-party access to the courts will be restricted. The proposed repealing of section 478 of the EPBC Act is a matter of some concern and it has been identified by legal experts and others as a significant loss. Abolishing the rights of third parties to seek a merits review by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for ministerial decisions regarding permits for trade in wildlife is simply not acceptable, and I am sure there will be representations made and amendments put forward to deal with those particular deficiencies.

It is of great concern to us that this bill will potentially wipe a number of threatened ecological communities from the current waiting list for protection under the existing EPBC Act—some 500 threatened communities, amounting to millions of hectares, if not more, of endangered habitat across the country. In the context of Australia’s record of loss through extinction, the number of threatened and endangered species that are currently vulnerable in the landscape is of great concern. All of these issues are important, but what is critical is the fact that it is climate change that is bearing down upon the habitats of the species of Australia. It is climate change that has the capacity to affect our environment, our ecological resilience, and it is climate change that this bill does not address at all.

Additionally, the capacity for review of the act is reduced, and we would argue very strongly that there needs to be regular reviewing of the act. As important as that is, I think the essential message here is that the minister has to go back and have a look at the deficiencies in this legislation. But it will be hard for the minister to do that, because the government’s existing suite of policies is completely lacking when it comes to seriously addressing climate change.

Recently, we had the spectacle of Minister Campbell opening a wind farm in China, while wind farms actually close here in Australia. I think Australians would be absolutely astonished to know that Australian jobs and the prospects for future Australian jobs in renewable energy—wind energy in particular—cannot happen here because the Howard government does not have the policies in place. Now it wants to bring in 400 pages or so of legislation that streamlines development consent and denies third-party rights to those wishing to challenge the minister’s decisions under the act. Yet there is not even a climate change trigger in this legislation. At the same time, the federal government’s policy deficiencies, evident not only in this legislation but also more broadly, are seeing Australian jobs being lost offshore—in effect, because the Howard government continues to be blind to what it needs to do about climate change.

Our river systems are in crisis. It is an overused word, but it is true. Our endangered species, and the possibility of species extinction, mean that we have a crisis. We have a crisis because we are blowing out our future greenhouse gas emissions. If we discount the deal that we got from the Kyoto protocol, which we did not sign, there is no doubt at all that land based and other emissions are going to increase rapidly in the longer term. And we have a crisis in relation to the way in which the government responds, in that when there are actually positive measures underway, when companies want to invest in renewables, as they have in Tasmania, the opportunities are not there for them. As a consequence, the environment minister goes to China to get involved and be proud of what can be done in the renewables industry there—with some Australian participation, it has to be said, in that wind farm. But here in Australia, where we have plenty of wind, companies that want to make that sort of investment, people we need to employ in that area and the prospect of actually reducing our greenhouse gas emissions and doing something about climate change, we are unable to because the Howard government is completely deficient when it comes to providing a meaningful response to climate change.

This legislation needs to be seriously looked at. The amendments that we have brought into the House need to be supported by the government. In particular, the government needs to consider the primary deficiencies that exist in this legislation and the necessity for a climate change trigger. Most importantly, it needs to listen to community interest, non-government organisations and others who want to see fair dinkum legislation—not this poor excuse for legislation—coming into this House that will protect the environment. We will simply see the business as usual approach to protecting environment in Australia that we have witnessed from the Howard government, which so far is not in any way seriously addressing the most important issue that we face: climate change. This legislation needs full debate. It cannot be rushed through the houses of the parliament. We need to be able to consider the amendments and put them so as to improve this legislation, which is so poor. (Time expired)

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was unfortunate that I could only spend about five or six minutes listening to the member for Kingsford Smith’s speech on the Environment and Heritage Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006. He is speedily leaving the premises so as not to hear some comments on the remarks he made in the last minutes of that speech. It was pretty interesting to hear him say a couple of things which in simplistic terms I agree with. He mentioned huge areas of species extinction. What he did not go on to say was that the most threatened group of indigenous species are grassland species. The Mitchell grasses of the far north and other grassland areas did not have one tree on them when Europeans first set out to settle in this country. Being one of those who is tree-centric, the member for Kingsford Smith has argued over the years that you do not knock down trees to save grass.

The Indigenous people burnt the grass every year and killed off the gidgee, and now we have intrusions of exotic species. I heard the other night that people are looking to satellite imagery to track these species, and there are thousands of acres of them. But you are not allowed to go in and knock them down either, because you might knock down a gidgee. The gidgee has destroyed the grass, and we wonder why we have got a category of endangered species. We now refer to these areas as forest, and they never were.

It is the same when the member for Kingsford Smith says our rivers are in crisis. According to his definition, the Darling was in crisis when it was first discovered by the explorer Sturt. He suddenly discovered a river stream. His cattle were dying of thirst and, when they got into the river bed, what was there? A trickle and it was as salty as the sea. In a later exploration, he got to Lake Alexandrina, the pride of Adelaide, and he could not get his rowboat across because it was so shallow. The further he progressed to the sea, the saltier it got and his plans were shattered when he could not get his rowboat into the ocean to join up with some vessel that was supposed to be there to collect him. He had to row back up the river because the river mouth was closed. That is now held up as national tragedy.

The Murray-Darling system was Australia’s biggest stormwater drain and it reverted to pools and little streams every year. That is a crisis for Australia, but it is not a crisis for the river because that is the natural state of the river as it is in other parts of Australia. Instead of being able to have proper debate on these matters, we have people who have built a sufficient personal reputation to get them into this parliament, like the member for Kingsford Smith, who promote arguments but never state the facts—that might be a problem for the legal profession in the wider experience.

Again, he throws in the one-liner of climate change. What solution is offered to this House to fix climate change for the world? Australia, for all the ridiculous argument that we are a high per capita generator of greenhouse gases, produces about one per cent of the world’s emissions. How do we achieve most of that? Not by the gross overuse of energy by the household sector—that is about 13 per cent of all the energy consumed in Australia. We have got state governments running around—and I think even our own government to a degree—targeting the household sector at a huge cost to homeowners, and it is a flea on the back of an elephant.

The reality is that we produce a lot of greenhouse gas supplying to other countries products like aluminium, otherwise known as congealed electricity. We provide that product so that other countries emit less. We provide liquefied natural gas so they can emit less and, throughout that process, even in the liquefaction of the gas, we create significant emissions. We create them from the natural gas itself. The great challenge to the Gorgon Project is the very high percentage of carbon dioxide that exists in the gas as it resides in the earth. Simply all natural gas has a component of CO and it must be removed. It is exhausted to the atmosphere in the liquefaction process because it liquefies ahead of the methane and other components of natural gas, and it would in fact solidify and clog the system. We do that for the benefit of others.

As I have reminded my party room recently—and unfortunately it fell on too many deaf ears at the top—and the West Australian newspaper by press release, 10 per cent is the amount of gas that has to be consumed to liquefy natural gas. Put in simpler terms, if you produce one million tonnes of natural gas you burn, for the generation of electricity, 100,000 tonnes of natural gas. Yet in the vicinity of our natural gas resources off the north-west coast of Western Australia, we have a tidal resource equal to all of the energy consumed in Australia of every variety. Nobody wants to go and do anything about it—neither the government nor the opposition.

The opposition’s response to greenhouse emissions is to sign a bit of paper. All of those who have signed so far have not complied with its conditions. We, a country that has not ratified the Kyoto protocol, in fact have a better record than many who have committed to it. It excludes the major emitters. It is reported that China is building a powerhouse per week, each of which is larger than those operating in Australia, and they are burning any sort of coal they can get for that purpose.

But there is this tidal resource. We are aware of high-voltage DC transmission technology which will allow this electricity to be delivered over lengthy distances. Here we are with that resource and nobody is suggesting government investment at both the federal and state level along with private sector investment. It is a tragedy that we have masses—close to $1 trillion—of superannuation funds, including the industry funds, and people are running all around the world building tollways in Canada and buying up the water infrastructure of London, yet they will not invest a cent in infrastructure within Australia. That infrastructure would create a viable, reliable energy generation capacity.

In fact, the great asset of tidal power is that its fuel is capital but its running costs are virtually nil. The French have been producing 350 megawatts of tidal power at La Rance for 40 years. I am advised that during that period even the maintenance cost of that generating equipment has been nearly nothing. We have a tidal resource that averages 11 metres twice a day. That is four cycles for a tidal generator: tide in, tide out; tide in, tide out. Everybody knows it is there. The topography lends itself to the construction of tidal power generators. And now we have a base customer—the liquefied natural gas sector. We could reduce its emissions by 10 per cent. We could have 10 per cent more gas to liquefy and sell. There are other opportunities once you create that base load. There is a huge bauxite deposit at Mitchell Plateau—the basis of an integrated aluminium industry. Aluminium, as I have previously said, is known as congealed electricity.

I invite the member for Kingsford Smith to convince his leader to stand up in this place and gazump our government for its neglect of that facility. But he might in the process also attack the Western Australian government for its failure to do anything about it. We have Premier Carpenter putting at risk all of the projects there by demanding that 20 per cent—or I think it is now 15 per cent—of the gas produced must be retained for Western Australia, without any understanding of what that means or whether it will frighten off investment due to sovereign risk. In fact, he could be saying: ‘I’m going to ask the federal government, along with the private sector, to help me to put in these tidal generators. I want to swap that for 10 per cent of the gas for electricity which you are burning already.’ The Brouse development is yet to even start and it wants 900 megawatts of electricity—that would be a nuclear power station if you want to go down that the road.

I look at the amendments of the members opposite. There is another pious amendment. They are saying all of these things like, ‘The bill is being rushed through the parliament.’ The debates on these things have taken place for both parties back in the committee rooms. They say, ‘The Howard government has failed to halt the decline in Australia’s natural environment and best agricultural land.’ I have just covered that. The state governments—New South Wales at the forefront and Queensland not far behind—are declaring trees that never existed to be remnant vegetation and refusing farmers the right to reinstate the natural grasslands. We have built weirs and dams along our river system, and I approve of that. They suggest that there is something wrong with the rivers because they are now going dry. But that is their natural state and it is ridiculous to talk about them in this fashion.

The member for Kingsford Smith, in the five or six minutes I was here, started to talk about wind farms and the fact that the minister is over in China doing something that we are not encouraging here. Why should we not encourage wind farms? They are a fraud. The rated capacity of these things is quoted. It is recognised that they never achieve better than 30 per cent of that rated capacity, but, what is more, unless they can be backed up with a highly responsive generator—in the case of small operations, a diesel generator; in the case of Tasmania, hydro; and even, to an extent, gas—you can manage their productivity or lack thereof.

Even the sparkies referred to by the member for Perth the other day will tell you that, in a coal-fired base power station, you have to make a decision at, say, three o’clock in the afternoon about starting to burn coal and generate steam for the five or six o’clock demand, when housewives and others turn on their electric stoves or whatever. You lack responsiveness. So what are the coal generators doing at present when the wind varies over five-minute intervals and the generating capacity of the wind towers is affected? They burn the coal in anticipation. They have to keep the pressure up because they do not know just how much power will come out of those wind generators. So they are burning as much coal as they did before and we have all the expensive infrastructure loading costs onto the basic network.

There is nothing wrong with a wind generator provided you do not connect it to the grid. An example was posted in the Australian newspaper recently: 150 megawatts of wind-generated capacity in New Zealand suffers variations in productivity of 100 megawatts—roughly 70 per cent—over five-minute intervals, and the power transmission people have more trouble when it goes up than when it comes down, because it is likely to start frying people’s equipment. What is the good of that? By the way, tidal power is cyclical, but you can predict, as we stand here, peak tide a hundred years from now. Moon power, of course, generates the tides—the circumnavigation of the moon—and, I might add, other factors within the subsea topography.

Let me just tell you how bad the interference of bureaucracy is. In my electorate, in a town called Hopetoun, which is becoming a dormitory suburb for BHP Billiton’s $1.8 billion laterite nickel development, we assisted the state electricity commission to erect a 600-kilowatt wind generator. It is backed up by a 700-kilowatt diesel generator. That is quite a suitable package. I am advised that, consequently, there has been a reduction in diesel fuel consumption. Diesel motors, of course, are responsive to the variations I have mentioned. There is barely any industry in that township. At around nine o’clock to 11 o’clock they turn out the lights, and that is always the time when the wind blows strongest. So I suggested to the minister that we ought to supply some money to buy an electrolysis unit—you can buy them off the shelf. For the same purpose, the Canadian government has just donated one to a Patagonian town. They have more brains than Australia does. They are doing exactly what I am now going to propose.

I said: while the wind generator is going around at night time and there is virtually no demand, why not make hydrogen by electrolysis—a schoolboy experiment—and use the fuel to power a conversion on your diesel motor that backs up the wind tower at times of high demand? To the minister’s credit—and he was just criticised by the member for Kingsford Smith—he said, ‘What a good idea.’ He invited me to have a discussion with one of his officials, who lied to me for half an hour. The environmental public servant told me, ‘You can’t store hydrogen.’ I do not know how they manage at Cape Canaveral while they are waiting for the weather to be suitable for a launch! Enough hydrogen is made in the world today to provide for 200 million hydrogen fuel cell motor cars, and I have an official telling me, ‘The atoms are too small, Mr Tuckey. It’d all leak out of the tank.’

Well, driving around Perth are three hydrogen fuel cell buses—there is a gaggle of them around the world for a developmental project—and, of course, they have fuel tanks containing hydrogen. Tomorrow BMW will sell you a 7 series limousine containing a fuel tank, like a thermos flask, with liquid hydrogen in it. The limousine’s internal combustion motor runs on either hydrogen or petrol. Why can’t this parliament focus on the practical solutions to an identifiable problem? Let us not have all these fear campaigns and silly arguments that you can create jobs out of the Kyoto protocol by letting people trade in the futures market—a very dangerous area, as AWB Ltd has just discovered. Unfortunately, I have run out of time, Mr Deputy Speaker, but thanks for your cooperation. (Time expired)

Harry Jenkins (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I regret to admit that I was actually listening intently to the member.

Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Public Accountability and Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is nice to have an audience! Australia can and should be an environmental showcase. We have wonderful riches in this country—a great diversity of flora and fauna, our landscapes, our mountains, our beaches. They really are second to none around the world. Unfortunately, we have failed to look after this magnificent heritage in the way that we should have done. If we look at all the objective indicators of environmental performance—salinity and the problems of salt, river water quality, decline of the Murray-Darling Basin, land clearing, species extinctions and the number of threatened flora and fauna species—we see that Australia’s environment is deteriorating. In some places, we have managed to completely trash it.

The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act has real potential to assist us, to help out, in this important task of protecting our magnificent environment for future generations, and as custodians on behalf of the rest of the world. But it has never been used to try to achieve that important objective—and I want to return to that matter. These hundreds of pages now before us in the shape of this bill, the Environment and Heritage Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006,  will not solve this problem either. So I am not going to support this bill, but I am going to support the amendment moved by the member for Grayndler. I particularly wish to support those parts of his amendment which go to the issue of global warming and the need for a greenhouse trigger in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. Global warming or climate change is the elephant in the room in any debate about the environment both in this country and in other countries around the world, and yet there is not one mention of global warming in the hundreds of pages of amendments which we are dealing with here.

The impact of global warming on Australia is very severe. We are experiencing it now in the shape of the drought. Back in 2002 when I was shadow environment minister, I made reference to the drought which we were experiencing then and the link between it and greenhouse gas emissions and to the predictions of the CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology and scientific experts right around the world that what greenhouse gas emissions mean and what increased levels and concentrations of carbon dioxide mean for Australia is more severe and more frequent droughts particularly in southern Australia. Back in 2002 there was not a whole lot of attention paid to that, but I hope the things that I and others said at that time had some impact in terms of raising awareness.

I am pleased to see a much greater level of awareness as we experience yet another drought—indeed, what is effectively a continuation of the 2002 drought for many parts of Australia. We see evidence coming in that there will be reduced rainfall for Perth on a long-term basis, reduced rainfall for my own home city of Melbourne on a long-term basis and reduced rainfall right across southern Australia; that there is a much greater understanding of the fact that this is being caused by global warming, which in turn is caused by greenhouse gas emissions; and that this is the shape of the future.

This drought has of course its greatest impact on farmers and on rural communities. It is causing great hardship in rural communities. It is threatening their future because water is of course their lifeblood. Those farmers and those rural communities have been appallingly let down by their Liberal Party and National Party representatives. They have been sold out by those Liberal Party and National Party representatives who, over the years, have sought to undermine and scuttle every effort at tackling global warming and climate change. I say to those farmers: you have been sold out by your Liberal Party and National Party representatives.

The first thing that we need to do to tackle climate change and global warming is to act at the international level because it is a global problem—CO emissions in the atmosphere is a global matter. I had the good fortune to go to the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg back in 2002 and I can report that the Australian delegation to that World Summit on Sustainable Development did everything it could to scuttle and undermine serious international efforts to tackle climate change. It undermined anything which went to the idea of targets and timetables committing us or other countries to firm and resolute action to contain and rein in our greenhouse gas emissions. Essentially, in this matter the Prime Minister has been sitting on George W Bush’s lap. We simply will not dare tell the United States or ask the United States to act or do anything in relation to greenhouse emissions. Our farmers should be demanding international action. Kyoto gets scoffed at by members opposite, but if we are on about collective international action—and we need to be on about collective international action—then the Kyoto protocol is terribly important to that process. Of course there is no value in Australia acting unilaterally if nobody else acts. Of course that is right and that is precisely why we need international action, and why we ought to get behind Kyoto and demand that the United States does likewise.

The second thing that farmers ought to be demanding is that we put a price on carbon. That should be in the form of emissions trading so that we enable the market to work. The government talks about technological solutions, but those solutions will not come to pass in the absence of market signals to encourage them and that is why we need to put a price on carbon. The third thing that farmers should be demanding is that we increase the renewable energy target. This government’s renewable energy target is laughable. It is just two per cent, which compares very poorly with that of other countries—and it has been effectively exhausted. Those in the wind energy industry and in other renewable energy industries are now looking offshore to other countries in order to place their projects, because the renewable energy target that we have in place has already been effectively subscribed. We should put a greenhouse trigger in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.

Global warming impacts very severely in Australia, not just in the shape of drought—although very severely in the shape of drought—but also in the shape of more frequent and more severe bushfires, in the prospective loss of snow in our alpine areas, in the coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef and in the prospect of tropical diseases like dengue fever or even malaria spreading further south. The other area in which it is likely to impact on Australia and on future generations is in climate change refugees. People are probably familiar with the problem of the low-lying islands in the South Pacific—Tuvalu, Kiribati and so on—which are threatened with inundation and effectively extinction by global warming, and the issue of refugees from those countries. New Zealand, for example, has made some offers in that regard. But what about places like Bangladesh? It is not possible to imagine a world in which millions and millions of refugees from climate change seek to enter Australia and other countries. This government has made pitiful and lame excuses for inaction. It has said that Kyoto will not solve the problem; that it is not enough. Well, maybe—but it is a start. Do you ever hear the government calling for more? What it effectively engages in is a counsel of despair. It says, ‘Kyoto won’t solve the problem; therefore, we won’t do anything.’

Then there is renewable energy. You have a Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry who attacks wind farms. What a disgraceful sell-out of Australia’s farmers. You have a Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources who says he is still not convinced it is happening. He is out there with Andrew Bolt and a handful of other dopes who still think that the world is flat and that smoking does not cause lung cancer. I urge these people to go and see the Al Gore film An Inconvenient Truth and then explain to this nation’s farmers and rural communities that they would sooner see the southern part of Australia turned into a dustbowl, sooner see the southern part of Australia become an uninhabitable desert, than have the courage to tell George W Bush that he is wrong about climate change and global warming. I recently heard the Minister for Foreign Affairs saying it was cowardly to get out of Iraq. I will tell members what is cowardly, and that is refusing to admit you got it wrong. It takes courage to admit you have made a mistake, and the government needs to have the courage to admit that it has been wrong in Iraq and it has been wrong about global warming. It needs to have the courage to go to the President of the United States and say, ‘You have been wrong about Iraq, you have been wrong about global warming and you need to change tack.’ That is what real courage is.

Here in Australia it is said we should not subsidise renewable energy, which is now going offshore due to a lack of support. The government say you should not be providing subsidies; that will cost taxpayers. What do they think is happening to us now as a result of global warming? We are paying hundreds of millions of dollars to farmers in drought relief, with no end in sight. The drought relief budget has rocketed up in the past five years. They need to get serious about renewable energy and serious about things like alternative fuels for cars. They say: ‘We don’t believe in Kyoto, we don’t believe in international action, we don’t believe in emissions trading, we don’t believe in setting a target for emissions reduction by 2050, we don’t believe in increasing the renewable energy target—but it is all right, because we are taking practical measures; we believe in practical measures.’

Recently I heard Senator Ian Campbell, the Minister for the Environment and Heritage,  again saying that his government was the first to set up a greenhouse office. All right—but what has it done? Our renewable energy performance is abysmal compared to the rest of the world. We used to be leaders in things like solar energy. The Australian Greenhouse Office has systematically underspent its budget every year since its establishment. Back in 2000-01 it was allocated $230 million and it spent $81 million—nearly $150 million underspent. The next year it was allocated $227 million and again it spent $81 million, another massive underspend. Do you know how the government tackled this problem? They slashed its budget. In subsequent years the Australian Greenhouse Office budget has been cut to between $110 million and $125 million—and still it keeps underspending it. In the eight years since it was established, the Australian Greenhouse Office underspend has been $362,475,000. So much for this government’s commitment to seriously tackling global warming; so much for their commitment to practical measures. The government owe Australians, and Australia’s farmers in particular, an apology for this shameful neglect.

I frequently hear people on the other side, like the Treasurer, talking about debt as a terrible legacy for our children and our grandchildren. It is a terrible legacy for our children and our grandchildren that this government has failed to seriously deal with global warming—future generations will be horrified by this period of wilful inaction—coming up with every reason in the book for inaction: it is not proven, there is scientific doubt, other countries ought to do more, technological change is the answer, nuclear power is the answer. The government comes up with any reason, as long as it is excused and as long as it excuses us here in this place from the need to take action—delay, defer, postpone.

I make the observation that I do not think nuclear is the answer. It is too far away. It requires a lot of water. It requires public subsidies. There is talk of public subsidies in relation to renewable energy—but just have a look at the insurance issues surrounding nuclear power and of course the location of reactors in dealing with the waste products.

This act has plenty of potential, but it has been a failure. The Australia Institute in July last year conducted a five-year assessment of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, and its conclusions were:

In almost all areas, the regime has failed to produce any noticeable improvements in environmental outcomes.

                  …              …              …

Despite overwhelming evidence of widespread non-compliance, the Commonwealth has taken only two enforcement actions in relation to the—

environmental assessment and approval regime—

in five years.

                  …              …              …

On the basis of the available evidence, it is hard to describe the ... regime as anything other than a waste of time and money.

And, finally:

... since the ... regime commenced, the condition of Australia’s natural and cultural heritage has continued to decline and the—

environmental assessment and approval—

provisions have not made a noticeable contribution to stopping or reversing this trend.

It is very unfortunate and a damning indictment of the way in which the EPBC Act has been used—or not been used.

Ironically, just about the only time it has been used was not to achieve an environmental objective; it was to block an environmental project. That was the $220 million wind farm proposal in Bald Hills. In the Age, back in April, Sean Dooley, who is a birdwatcher and a writer, wrote concerning the Bald Hills decision:

As a birdwatcher, I must admit it came as something of a pleasant surprise to see a member of this Government professing such deep concern for one of my favourite birds—

that is, the orange-bellied parrot. He continued:

In the past, it didn’t seem to bother them that they bypassed all environment considerations when they wanted to build the new detention centre on Christmas Island, despite its being within spitting distance of one of the largest breeding colonies of the critically endangered Abott’s booby …

He went on to point out that that was a type of sea bird that only nests on Christmas Island, not one of the Minister for Health’s more outrageous comments. Mr Dooley went on to say that the environment minister was:

... shutting down a $220 million wind farm proposal at Bald Hills in South Gippsland on the basis that though the orange-bellied parrot has never actually been recorded there, one might turn up and it may get sliced by the spinning blades of the turbines.

He said:

Wow, and this level of concern from a member of the same party as former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett who called the orange-bellied parrot a “trumped-up corella” when he wanted to move the Coode Island chemical facility to the epicentre of one of its most crucial wintering grounds.

The Minister for the Environment and Heritage stated that ‘the failure to identify orange-bellied parrots does not mean they do not use the area’. Mr Dooley went on to say:

... imagine the truckloads of scorn and derision that would have been dumped on someone such as Bob Brown if he had come out with such a statement.

He went on to say:

If the hypothetical threat of losing one bird to a turbine is too much for the minister to bear, then he must be beside himself to realise that his Government did nothing to stop a wind farm being built at Yambuk in western Victoria right in the vicinity of where real, live, actual—

orange-bellied parrots—

have been regularly recorded in the past few years.

It is incredible. You have an environment minister who blocked the wind farm where the orange-bellied parrots are not but allowed a wind farm where the orange-bellied parrots are. As soon as he was taken to court, he was ducking for cover because he had absolutely no evidence on which to base his decision. Australians and the Australian environment deserve better than this. I urge the House to support the second reading amendment moved by the member for Grayndler.

Michael Johnson (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased and delighted to speak in the parliament again on a very significant piece of government legislation, the Environment and Heritage Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006. In fact it is a world-class piece of legislation that I know many Australians will support. Certainly the overwhelming majority of Ryan constituents will support it. We have just heard, again, another inaccurate and, frankly, pathetic presentation from the member for Wills. As usual, the federal opposition play the man—they do not play the ball—including abuse of the US President and abuse of the Australian Prime Minister, and they have hardly anything to say in the way of substantial policy.

Before I speak on the bill in any depth I want to take this opportunity—as a very strong supporter of the coalition government—on behalf of the people of Ryan to extend their very best wishes to our farmers, our country brethren, who are doing it tough. As we all know, this is a terrible time for them in terms of the environment and the drought in particular. The environmental suffering they are going through with the drought is quite awful. The people of Ryan would want me to extend their very best wishes and their sympathies to their country brethren. They will also, I am sure, support the government’s initiatives to financially support our farmers in this difficult time.

The first thing that can be said about running the Australian economy is that it has to be a strong economy to support all the services that the Australian people expect. In the area of the environment, again, nothing is more significant to good environmental policy, programs and long-term and sustainable environmental policy than a strong economy that will underwrite federal funding.

Of course, we know that at the moment the Australian economy is humming along quite nicely. The challenges and problems we have are ones of labour shortage. Our economic challenges and difficulties are those coming from national prosperity. We all know that the opposite problem is having massive unemployment and massive labour oversupply. When you have that, when it comes to the environment, no government policy will be effective—you cannot have people not in work—and the government’s focus will be on trying to get people into work rather than on good policies that will improve our environment. In terms of the environment generally, a hallmark of the coalition’s approach to the support and protection of our environment is the encouragement of hands-on and grassroots strategies—very successful programs like the Natural Heritage Trust, the Australian government’s Envirofund and, of course, one of my favourites, the Green Corps program.

These programs have helped to protect eight million hectares of wetlands and to treat 400,000 hectares of land for salinity and erosion. They have helped 800,000 volunteers to get involved and to have a stake in their local environment. And with funding of over $1.55 billion in 2006-07, the coalition government is also taking direct action to further tackle salinity, boost water sustainability, improve our air quality, address climate change, control pests and weeds, and invest in environmental research. It will help to protect forest diversity, endangered species, oceans, whales, the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland and natural Indigenous and built heritage. This commitment has been backed up with resources, with total environment expenditure increasing from $379 million in the Labor year of 1995 to $1.55 billion in 2006-07.

This bill is a strong indication of the government’s meaningful focus on environmental policy. The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999—the EPBC—is Australia’s strongest ever environmental protection law. It was introduced in 2000; it represents the most fundamental reform of Australian government environment laws since the first environmental statutes were enacted in the early 1970s.

As usual, we hear the federal Labor Party bagging all of the good things the Howard government does. They stand to be condemned because all they do is whinge and carp, rarely coming up with anything of substance as an alternative policy when they seek to run this country—or, I should say, when they seek to be in power with their union masters.

The EPBC Act enables the Australian government to join with the states and territories in providing a truly national scheme of environment protection and biodiversity conservation. The act establishes a comprehensive regulatory scheme for the conservation and management of important protected areas and places, including national heritage sites. The act provides for improved enforcement through the introduction of strong and effective civil and criminal penalties for noncompliance as well as provides for environmental audits.

The protection of matters of national environmental significance—including world and national heritage places, internationally recognised wetlands and nationally listed threatened species across all of Australia and its waters—provides for improved environmental outcomes in a wide range of significant activities such as major mining developments, offshore seismic surveys, urban development, infrastructure projects and energy production. The EPBC Act’s environmental assessment of fisheries ensures that Australia’s fisheries are ecologically sustainable and that the export and import of wildlife is consistent with international wildlife trade conventions. Those are some of the elements that the act provides for.

The act has been in operation for six years, and during this time it has provided protection for more than 1,680 flora and fauna species, 37 threatened ecological communities, hundreds of migratory birds and animal species such as whales, albatrosses and shorebirds. Some 64 Australian wetlands have been listed on the Ramsar convention as well as 16 World Heritage places and 29 national heritage places.

While the EPBC Act was a major reform, the amendments in this legislation will improve it further. They will streamline the operation of the act and, importantly, will reduce red tape, which we on this side of parliament are in the business of doing. The changes mean that matters of national environmental significance will continue to be protected, but that business—large and small—will be able to benefit from a more streamlined approvals process. The amendments will ensure that environmental protection continues while ensuring certainty for business and investors.

The amendments will, as I said, streamline the act and cut red tape. They are going to speed up approval processes, particularly for more straightforward proposals. Importantly, they will reduce duplication by enabling the Minister for the Environment and Heritage to rely on approval conditions set by other governments. They will encourage bilateral agreements by enabling accreditation of state and territory authorisation processes, management arrangements and legally binding management plans. Importantly, they will make the EPBC process more flexible, which is something quite desirable. They will speed up decisions by reducing the number of mandatory steps in the process and allowing different processes to occur concurrently. The amendments will also allow voluntarily compensatory actions and financial contributions as offsets to unavoidable environmental impacts. The amendments will also encourage major developments to be considered earlier in the development phase by allowing individual projects approved under strategic assessments, regional plans and conservation agreements to be exempt from further assessment under the act.

The amendments will also strengthen compliance and enforcement, which is very significant. They will establish strict liability provisions for a number of offences under the act, and, as those who have a legal background will know, this confirms a well-known legal principle that ignorance of the law is not a defence. They will introduce penalties for minor breaches of approval conditions, provide alternatives to lengthy and expensive court proceedings and allow the minister to require mediation action.

An important provision that should be noted is that employers and principals will be liable for the actions of their employees and contractors, and landholders will be liable for what happens on their land. The bill will introduce measures to deal with the increasing problem of illegal fishing by foreign nationals in Australian jurisdictions, which Australia must be very focused on. This is a very important bill; it is an amendment bill with very significant provisions.

I want to also talk about the Natural Heritage Trust, which those in the Ryan community will all know of. It was the biggest, most successful environmental restoration program in Australia’s history—it provided $3 billion in funding to help local communities in 56 regions across Australia to clean beaches, rehabilitate coastlines, reduce erosion, improve the health of land and waterways, increase the productivity of agricultural land and protect our threatened species.

That is the sort of funding that a federal government can allocate when it is confident the national economy is prosperous and is continuing to grow and to expand. As I said at the beginning of my speech, if the economy is not right, if the economy is not growing, if the economy is not expanding, and if people are not employed and in good jobs, then any Australian government would be in less of a position to allocate resources to the environment, which all of us, as Australians, want to protect, want to conserve and want to leave in a better condition than we find it currently. I reject absolutely those opposite who think they somehow have the moral high ground on the environment, they somehow have the monopoly of knowledge and they have the exclusivity of wisdom on matters environmental. They do not, and those of us on this side of the chamber should reject that absolutely and unequivocally.

Native vegetation work has been conducted on 1.57 million hectares of land; 63 million seedlings have been planted; 113,000 kilometres of fencing have been constructed; 4.2 million hectares of land have been protected from erosion; and 172,000 megalitres of drainage water or treatment effluent were recycled—all this happened under a very significant Natural Heritage Trust agenda.

I also want to take the opportunity in the parliament to remind the Ryan electorate of the Envirofund, which the Australian government promotes very strongly and very proudly, because it is something that we should be very proud of. The Howard government, of course, in 2002 launched the Australian government’s Envirofund to specifically focus on and facilitate the local action component of the $3 billion Natural Heritage Trust. In fact, only this month, the environment minister announced $20 million worth of community projects, raising the total investment by the Envirofund to more than $110 million.

I also want to speak in the parliament about the Green Corps project because I have had a lot to do with this in the Ryan electorate. I support it very strongly. It gives our young people an opportunity to connect with their local communities and the environment. It is youth orientated. It allows for personal growth as well as doing something very good for the communities’ environmental challenges. It is for people between the ages of 17 and 20. It is one of the very significant initiatives of the Howard government in the area of environmental policy. I have had the opportunity to go to pretty much every Green Corps launch and graduation in the Ryan electorate, and I am a very strong supporter of the projects. I know that Ryan constituents are very supportive of the projects, because many of them go to the graduation ceremonies, as well as to the actual launch of them.

As the federal member for Ryan, I took the opportunity to sponsor two participants to come to Canberra to meet with federal ministers and parliamentary secretaries to convey to them how much they had benefited from being part of their particular Green Corps project. They reported to people like Senator Ian Campbell, his parliamentary secretary, Greg Hunt, other ministers, including the Minister for Workforce Participation, and the parliamentary secretary for education, Pat Farmer, how important this program is. They said that the funding should continue and that they have not only benefited personally but also been able to put something back into the community. The Green Corps project allows young Australians to train for over a half year, it allows them to gain practical experience and, indeed, it opens the door and creates greater opportunity for a job in the area of environmental study or in the community.

I will finish with some points about the Kyoto protocol. I know that those opposite hold the Kyoto protocol as the shining light, as the solution of almost all our environmental challenges and problems. I acknowledge that many Ryan constituents think that the Howard government should support the Kyoto protocol. I want to say to the parliament that the Howard government will not support the Kyoto protocol for one fundamental reason—that is, it is not in the national interests of this country. Unlike those opposite, we are in the business of running this country for the benefit of this country, not for the benefit of other people.

We are in the business of running this country for the interests of all Australians. To ratify the Kyoto protocol would destroy thousands of jobs held by the workers of Australia, whom I would have thought the Labor Party would stand up for very strongly. Here we have the Labor Party, the so-called workers party—the political party that claims to be the friend of workers—prepared to sign an international agreement that would destroy the jobs of thousands of workers, thousands of Australians. For the life of me I cannot understand how a party that claims to represent the working class would be prepared to sign an agreement that would destroy families by taking away their employment. This is just absurd.

This lies at the heart of why the Howard government will not support the Kyoto protocol. Kyoto does not require the high greenhouse gas emitting countries such as China, Indonesia and Brazil to be under any obligation whatsoever to clean up their own act. While we emit some 1.4 per cent of the world’s emissions, we would be compromised. I know that the Labor Party keeps banging on this drum, saying that this is the solution, but this is not the solution.

I want to again say to those in the Ryan electorate, in particular, that the Howard government is in the business of protecting the national economy. We are in the business of ensuring that Australians have job security. We are going to focus on things like the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate. This is a substantial agreement that, as those well-educated and very thoughtful Ryan constituents will know, brought together ministers from China, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea and the US in January this year to Sydney for the inaugural ministerial meeting. These six founding partners, including Australia, encompass some 49 per cent of the world’s GDP, 48 per cent of the world’s energy consumption and 48 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, not to mention 45 per cent of the world’s population.

This approach is going to have more impact than signing an agreement that leaves out the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter. With Australia contributing only 1.4 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, we played host to a significant meeting which showed that we in this country are well and truly punching above our weight in the area of climate control. The Howard government has committed some $100 million over five years to contribute to capacity-building activities under this partnership. This is on top of some $1.8 billion that we have already invested in Australia to address climate change, including $500 million for low-emission technologies and over $200 million for renewable energy initiatives.

I want to say to my electorate, to the good people of Ryan, that I know that they are very concerned about the environment. The western suburbs of Brisbane, which many of my colleagues in this parliament and many members of the cabinet and the ministry have been to in support of my representation of that local community, are in a wonderful area. The environment is very much at the top of the agenda. I will continue to focus on the initiatives, policies and ideas of this government that will enhance the environment and not only assist the community of Ryan but leave this country’s environmental landscape a better place. Again, I reject the assertion that the Labor Party bang on about—that is, that they have a total monopoly in this area. I think that the government would be well served to remind the Australian community that we are the party of ideas. We are the party of initiatives. We are the party of substantial policy that makes a difference to this country.

Simon Crean (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to oppose the Environment and Heritage Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006 and support the amendment that has been moved by the member for Grayndler. This bill demonstrates, as graphically as it can, the vast gulf of difference between Labor’s approach to protecting our environment and the Howard government’s approach. Before I go to the details, we want to complain and register our concern about the process which has been associated with this legislation but which is just a pattern now.

This bill was introduced last week—409 pages of it. There has not been any opportunity for the Parliamentary Library to prepare a Bills Digest to assist us in our research, which is the normal practice in this place. I am told by the library that, because of the way in which this government is bringing legislation in and dropping it on the table at the last minute, they will not be able to produce that digest for another two weeks. I make that point because this is not the way to run a democracy, let alone solve our environmental problems. This government needs to lift its act considerably in terms of treating the parliament with respect so that important pieces of legislation can be given proper and adequate consideration.

This bill is 409 pages of complex law. The one thing that is noticeable from going through the 409 pages very quickly is that in all of those 409 pages there is not one mention of climate change. How can you really seriously introduce environment and heritage legislation that does not mention climate change? Does the government not think it is a problem? According to this bill it is not, because it has no proposals to address that problem.

We on this side of the House argue that climate change is one of the most important challenges facing not just us as a nation but us as a planet. If there should be any doubt about it, at the same time this week a report on a poll conducted by the Lowy Institute for International Policy was released. It is very interesting. It is very revealing in what it says the Australian public consider to be the most important issue. On the issue of global warming, the report says:

Easily the most popular option, supported by more than two thirds ... of respondents, was that global warming is a serious and pressing problem ...

In other words, they identified global warming as the key issue, the consequences of which are climate change. Sixty-eight per cent of people polled see it as a serious and pressing problem and argue that we should be taking steps now, even if it involves significant costs. Another 24 per cent on top of the 68 per cent say that global warming should be addressed but that its effects will be gradual, so we can deal with the problem gradually. Only seven per cent of the population said that global warming is not really a problem and until we are sure that it is a problem we should not take any steps.

That is a very significant finding because it demonstrates where the Australian public is and where the Howard government is. This bill follows the seven per cent. This is the seven per cent option. This is the minimalist, stick your head in the sand and do nothing approach. Even the member for Ryan, who spoke before me, admits that his constituents are urging him to do something about signing the Kyoto protocol, and he ignores them.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are doing something about it.

Simon Crean (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are not doing anything about it. I will come to the issues that the bill attempts to deal with. The bill shows, as I said, that it is really only pandering to the seven per cent of the population. It is ignoring the overwhelming call for action in this area. We oppose the bill because of its failure to deal with the key issues.

Some of the amendments it proposes, we do admit, are of benefit. We acknowledge that. For example, the bill aligns the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act and the Fisheries Management Act, which will be a significant factor in assisting in the management of our depleted fisheries. As a previous minister who had responsibility for resources and fisheries, amongst other things, I can say that this is a key area in preserving not just diversity but the source of supply for the future.

The bill will also allow for increased cooperation between the Australian government and state and territory governments. I think that is a good thing. But from all of the contact we have had with state governments we have heard that they too were given very little notice of what was involved in this bill. Just as this side of the parliament has been treated with contempt, so the government treats its state counterparts with contempt, yet it knows that the solution to these problems intrinsically involves the two levels of government working together. We are failing in this is because the government thinks that what it is doing it can do alone, and when it is left to its own devices it exposes the deficiency in its approach.

The bill also streamlines processes and eliminates unnecessary steps. We support those actions, as long as the public interest is protected and proper consultation is allowed. Clearly, we need to continue to strike a balance. The member for Ryan referred to this obliquely, but we genuinely believe that it is possible to strike a balance between sustainability and industry development. Labor has been at the forefront in government as well as in opposition in promoting solutions that achieve that objective. The original intention of the bill was to strike that balance between development and the environment. So we will address those issues. We recognise their importance. We would be prepared to support those particular measures if they were not contained within a bill that is deficient in so many other areas. We want the government to withdraw the bill and come back with a better-crafted solution. We will use the opportunity here as well as in the Senate and through its committee structures to highlight the problems.

Despite the question of climate change, which I have already referred to, being the most pressing environmental problem of our time, this bill does nothing to address it. Labor, on the other hand, has been putting forward policies for at least the past five years to address this issue in a comprehensive way. As I said earlier, the aims of this amendment bill are to get the balance right between development and the environment. The problem with this bill is that it tips the balance in favour of the development at the expense of the environment. We say that the balance has to be struck and that this bill tips the balance in the wrong direction. It is being rushed through, and we are moving to amend it on a number of fronts. The opposition’s second reading amendment highlights those. We also want to amend the bill to address the real and urgent environmental issues that face us: properly assessing greenhouse polluting projects, restoring appeal rights, restoring the independence of decision making, ensuring proper public consultation, reviewing the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act and addressing the issues raised out of the Senate inquiry.

Apart from those amendments, which we are proposing in a positive way, the bill itself should also be opposed because it curtails appeal rights, undermines public consultation and further politicises the decision-making process. I will come to that at the end of my speech. Above all, it should be opposed because it does not address Australia’s greenhouse pollution or take any measures to protect us from climate change. It does nothing in itself to address the worsening water crisis or to protect the fragile coastal environment. It has been put forward by the Minister for the Environment and Heritage, who has totally politicised environmental and heritage protection. We remember the farce of the orange-bellied parrot and the minister who rode his horse around Parliament House in support of cattle grazing in the alpine high country.

On the question of water, our water crisis today is directly linked to climate change. When I was the leader of the Labor Party, one of my highest priorities was saving our rivers and restoring our land. More than three years ago I made a commitment to restore environmental flows to the Murray and to restore the health of that mighty river. I proposed the establishment of RiverBank to invest in water infrastructure in joint venture arrangements with state governments, in private sector water efficiency projects and in water supply improvement projects. We committed to returning 1,500 gigalitres into that once mighty river—the river that I walked across at its mouth and which had the width of a cricket pitch. In those days, that was dramatic enough. The other day, you only had to look at the picture in the press of the young girl walking across the Darling River, which has dried up. These rivers were the lifeblood of the nation. In any other country whose mightiest rivers were in serious decline or under threat from dying, they would have been doing something about it years ago—but not this government.

As I said, we proposed those initiatives back then. It was a billion-dollar program. It was fully costed and it was fully funded. It could have been afforded, and we demonstrated how it could be afforded then. We invited the government to pick it up and work in a bipartisan way to address this problem. Not only did they not pick it up; they used the 2003 budget to cut funding to the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality. This government now wants credit for being seen to do something on water. I welcome the fact that they have finally recognised what we have been saying for so long. I welcome the fact that they have recognised the need to put effort and money into it. But what have they done? They have put forward a proposal for $500 million. Just imagine how much further down the track we would be had this government embraced what Labor put forward in an affordable way more than three years ago—a billion-dollar program over four years on top of their $500 million now.

It would be a real program that could give you leverage with the states, not this bickering that we see going on. We see Malcolm Turnbull, the great champion of water. Every time they ask him for a solution he says, ‘Oh, it is the states’ problem.’ I will tell you this: the Australian public are sick to death of the buck passing between levels of government. They want a cooperative effort. They want solutions—practical solutions—worked out. Of course it is going to involve commitment in terms of resources. But we are a wealthy economy, and these are the sorts of investments an economy that is prosperous should be making. They are about preservation for future generations. They are essential investments that this country needs to make.

As another demonstration of the impact of climate change, our 10 hottest years have occurred in the last 14 years. Just think about that. That is a dramatic demonstration of how serious this problem has become. It is on this government’s watch that this dramatic increase in the problem has occurred. The year 2005 was the hottest year on record, and the Murray River is at its lowest level for over 100 years. That paints a dramatic picture. If anyone wants any further demonstration of it, look at the drought.

The government have finally acknowledged the problem with drought this week. They have produced another drought package. But unless the government are prepared to tackle climate change, this issue is just going to get worse. What is the point in doling out relief packages time after time unless you are dealing with the cause? If they are failing to deal with climate change, they are failing to deal with the issues of our water flows, of drought and of all the consequences that go with it. It is not just the impact on the economy that people should worry about; think about the social infrastructure. There have been many reports of suicides, deaths and families being ripped apart. We have an obligation to save our nation, to look after it and to nurture it. We should not let it languish, blame someone else and refuse to turn up to the negotiating table to try and address the problem. That is the extent of inaction by this government.

Drought relief is essential. I acknowledge that. Indeed, when I was Minister for Primary Industries and Energy, I developed the national drought policy. I heard the Prime Minister the other day claim credit for the Farm Management Deposits scheme. I introduced it. I am delighted that the government have kept it because it is an important part of the way in which we encourage farmers to prepare their land and their natural resource base to prevent the impact and the ravages of drought. The package that I developed provided immediate relief and assistance for farmers and enabled better preparation for drought. That farm deposit scheme that I introduced could even out the incomes between the peaks and the troughs. It is also important to provide sensible and dignified exit strategies for farms that are not viable. Of course we have to provide drought relief, but we also have to assist marginal farmers to leave the industry with dignity. This is an increasing challenge because the failure to act on climate change is making marginal farms even more marginal. Again, it is the cause that this government is failing to address. It is producing bandaids—expensive bandaids, as we are finding out—to address the effect.

So, as important as these challenges are in dealing with drought, we must recognise the challenge of climate change and develop policies to counter it. We cannot develop lasting solutions to the problem of drought unless we develop active policies to combat climate change and address our water flows. Labor will ratify Kyoto—and we are proud of that. I heard the member for Ryan saying that we believe it is the panacea. We do not believe it is the panacea, but it is an important start. I say to the Liberal Party: I cannot understand why a government that prides itself on being the party of free enterprise and support for the market is denying Australia the opportunity to enter one of the new emerging future markets—that is, emissions trading. Where are its free enterprise principles? Where is its opportunity to let the market determine these levels? Its approach is to stay away from the negotiating table and say, ‘We’re not going to sign up until someone else comes in.’ We say: turn up at the negotiating table, use your international pressure to get the others to that negotiating table and deal us in in a way in which our industries’ interests are taken into account for that emissions trading regime.

We produce some of the cleanest burning coal, for example. Certainly our gas supplies in a production sense are far more efficient than that produced anywhere else in the world. Why should we not get credit for it? If we are not participating in the development of this market through the Kyoto protocol, we are going to miss the opportunity completely. Labor understood this. That is why we participated in the international forums and why we hammered home the importance of getting greenhouse sinks—if you like, plantation timber—into the equation for the purposes of addressing greenhouse gas emissions. We succeeded, and we did it in the interests of the nation. You do not represent the interests of the nation by staying away. That is why the member for Ryan is so stupid in ignoring the wishes of his people and not understanding the philosophy of his own party and looking to the opportunities that are presented by being a signatory to the Kyoto protocol. Labor understand the significance of it. We should get on board.

We need also to be encouraging the development of renewables and clean technologies in terms of our existing fossil fuels—sequestration techniques and clean coal technologies. We need to sign up to a stronger commitment to the mandatory renewable energy target, MRET. These are initiatives that Labor have constantly put forward. They are good policies. They address climate change, and we urge the government to address it.

There is one provision of particular concern: it is what we call the ‘parrot provision’ in this legislation—clause 324, which gives the minister the ability to regard information or advice from any source. This is the minister who holds up the Bald Hills wind farm but goes to China to open theirs. So he denies Australian industry the opportunity to develop wind farms but goes and opens them in China. All that to save a parrot. In saving a parrot, the minister has made himself look a complete goose, and this particular clause in this piece of legislation is designed to cover that stupidity. This is an ill-conceived bill. It should be withdrawn. The government should sit down with Labor, embrace the initiatives we have talked about and really do something on climate change. (Time expired)

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I join my colleague the member for Hotham, and indeed other members on this side of the House who have spoken in this debate, in opposing the Environment and Heritage Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006 that is currently before us in the House. It is a bill that seeks to amend the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. The 1999 act, which came into effect in July 2000, introduced a series of reforms to Australia’s environmental laws, which had otherwise remained relatively unchanged since the first environmental statutes were enacted in this country in the early 1970s.

Since the introduction of the 1999 act, it has been the cornerstone of Australia’s environmental law. Among other things, the act sets out a framework for assessing the impact that proposed actions would have on the health and wellbeing of the Australian environment. That is, it introduced into Australian law the idea that, when it came to assessing the pros and cons of proposed actions, their impact on the environment had to be taken into account. In particular, the 1999 act makes provisions to assess those actions which have the potential to in some way affect World Heritage properties, the Ramsar wetlands, Australia’s nationally threatened species and ecological communities and its migratory species, the Commonwealth marine environment and places on the Natural Heritage List. The framework introduced by the 1999 act also included assessing the environmental impact of uranium mining.

Whilst the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 fell short of establishing all the necessary environmental safeguards required to protect Australia’s unique biodiversity, it was a welcome step in the right direction for those of us in this place who believe that we need to do much more if we are to succeed in protecting Australia’s fragile environment—not just for our sakes or for our own interests but for the sakes of our children and future generations. The amendments proposed in the 2006 bill which is currently before us in the House undo many of those gains achieved under the 1999 act and spell a significant step backwards for environmental protection measures in Australia. There is in fact very little to commend in this bill, and it is for that reason that I and all my colleagues oppose it.

The government claims that the amendments it seeks to introduce through this bill will make the EPBC Act ‘more efficient and effective to allow for the use of more strategic approaches and to provide greater certainty in decision making’. The 2006 bill is supposed to make the 1999 act ‘more efficient and effective’: by reducing the processing time and costs for development interests; by enhancing our ability to deal with large-scale projects and give priority attention to projects of national importance through the use of strategic assessment and approval processes; by putting in place measures to enable developers to avoid having an impact on the matters of environmental significance protected by the act; by facilitating a greater focus on protecting threatened species, ecological communities and heritage places that are of real national importance; and by clarifying and strengthening the enforcement provisions of the 1999 act.

However, the simple fact is that no matter what language of process and procedure this government chooses to use to obfuscate the reality of what is contained in this bill and no matter what grandiose claims it tries to make in relation to this bill, nothing can hide the fact that the amendments it seeks to make to the 1999 act are a significant step backwards for environmental protection in this country. And nothing can change the reality that this government has shown virtually no regard for, and absolutely no leadership in, the environment and environmental protection since it first took power in 1996.

Australia’s decision not to sign the Kyoto protocol is but one example of the government’s abysmal record of choosing to look the other way when it comes to the environment and its protection. Despite the fact that there is near universal consensus today that global warming has become one of the greatest challenges that our world faces, this government decided quite stubbornly to turn its back on the Kyoto protocol and continues to refuse to sign it. In doing so, it has opted out of the most significant international effort initiated to date aimed at mitigating the effects of climate change. Under the Kyoto protocol nations are required to reduce worldwide carbon pollution by an average of 5.2 per cent below their 1999 levels by the period 2008-2012. To date, 158 countries have ratified the Kyoto protocol, which came into effect as international law in February 2005.

Whilst the Kyoto protocol may not be the answer to all our problems, it does herald a promising start, setting an important precedent for the development of future international efforts aimed at combating climate change. Kyoto set in train and consolidated in international law the recognition that combating climate change is a global effort, one that it is incumbent upon all of us to get behind and support. It lays the foundations for future initiatives whose strength and success will reside in their ability to both gain international support and further facilitate international cooperation. No matter how much the government tries to portray the Kyoto protocol as somehow deficient or a nonsolution to climate change, we must never forget that one of Kyoto’s greatest achievements has been to consolidate the international community around a joint effort aimed at combating global warming. And despite all the hype, we are yet to be presented with a viable alternative to Kyoto either by this government or by other nations who have refused to sign up to the protocol. Despite being two of the highest per capita emitters of greenhouse gases, Australia and the United States are the only two major developed countries not to have ratified the Kyoto protocol.

Just as this government has gone missing in action at a time when so many others in the international community have joined forces to tackle the problem of climate change, so this government has gone missing in action on the domestic front, whittling away the environmental protections and safeguards contained in the EPBC Act. The Kyoto protocol is important in the context of this bill because this bill once again reveals the entrenched reticence of this government about tackling the challenges of climate change. In the 409 pages of amendments contained in this bill climate change is not mentioned once. If nothing else, it is conspicuous by its absence and it remains the elephant in the room when it comes to the environmental policies of this government.

Labor has consistently lobbied to have climate change listed as one of the factors or triggers that must be taken into consideration when assessments are made about the environmental impact of certain actions. Under the 1999 act climate change was not listed as a trigger, to ensure that large-scale greenhouse polluting projects are assessed by the federal government—an omission that Labor wants to see amended.

The government has continued to block any attempt to have climate change included as a key determining factor in assessing the environmental impact of proposed actions, and so is the case with this bill. Consistent with the government’s decision to turn its back on the Kyoto protocol, this bill simply ignores the dangers of climate change as if they bore no relevance at all to assessing the impact of proposed actions on the environment. Just as its refusal to sign the Kyoto protocol highlights the government’s multiple failings in the area of environmental protection, this bill highlights the government’s continued failure to ensure that Australia has adequate and effective environmental protection measures in place.

The fact that this government continues to do nothing about climate change, despite all the evidence that now exists concerning the dangers it poses, shows what little importance it attaches to the environment in its list of priorities. The government’s performance when it comes to reducing Australia’s carbon pollution has been nothing short of appalling. In a report released in December 2004, the government’s Greenhouse Office claimed:

Australia is on track to achieve its target of limited greenhouse emissions to 108% of 1990 emissions over the period 2008-12, as agreed to at Kyoto.

If this were the case, the most obvious question to ask is why the government persists in refusing to ratify the Kyoto protocol if indeed it is on track to meet the targets Kyoto sets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, the Australian Greenhouse Office alarmingly predicts that Australia’s carbon pollution will rise rapidly to be 123 per cent of 1990 levels by 2020.

One thing is for certain: this bill does absolutely nothing to tackle the problem of climate change. Instead, it simply chooses to ignore the reality of climate change. Scientists agree that the earth will warm by at least three degrees by 2050 and up to nine degrees Celsius by the year 2100. Most of the warming that has occurred over the last 50 years is the result of carbon pollution from human activity with fossil fuel use being the main source of carbon pollution. Carbon pollution and other greenhouse gases effectively act like a blanket, trapping heat and warming the earth’s surface. The more greenhouse gases we release, the thicker the blanket becomes.

The 10 hottest years on record have all occurred in the last 14 years and, according to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, 2005 was the hottest year on record—that is, the hottest we have had since records first started to be kept in 1861. It is now common knowledge that if we continue to do nothing, if we continue to wait and fail to develop national policies that in some way mitigate the effects of climate change, the impact of climate change will be devastating.

For farmers in Australia, it means longer droughts, lower soil moisture, lower yields and poorer crop quality. The effects of that are a significant issue for debate and concern at this very minute. Similarly, climate change poses a significant danger to a number of Australia’s protected national heritage sites, such as the Great Barrier Reef which in the next 25 years could be devastated by regular coral bleaching as a result of the ocean warming. Kakadu also faces an uncertain future. If global temperatures rise by a further two degrees, half of Kakadu’s majestic wetlands will be wiped out.

By 2030, conservative estimates predict that the water supply to both Melbourne and Sydney will drop by 25 per cent as a result of reduced rainfall and higher evaporation from climate change. Added to this is a plethora of other looming disasters attributed to climate change, including the dramatic consequences of rising sea levels and, as such, common sense dictates that each and every one of us in this place is charged with a responsibility to start supporting efforts aimed at reversing the trends of global warming.

There are a number of other concerns that I and my colleagues have regarding this bill. One of the more significant ones is that aspect of the bill which seeks to curtail third-party appeal rights and removes the public consultation processes provided for in the 1999 act. As it stands, under certain circumstances the 1999 act allows for a third party or parties, such as community groups and environmental or business groups, to appeal ministerial decisions especially in relation to the granting of permits. This third-party appeals process covers ministerial decisions regarding permits pertaining to one or more of the following categories: threatened species, marine species, migratory species, wildlife trade permits, whales and dolphins.

Under the 1999 act, third parties have a right to appeal wildlife import and export decisions if made by the minister. This includes the import of species under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, such as Asian elephants and the export of koalas to Thailand. Under the 2006 bill, this right is abolished. By shutting out third parties and abolishing third-party appeal rights, the 2006 bill effectively concentrates all power in the hands of the minister and wipes away all existing avenues for public scrutiny and input into decisions made by the minister. It erodes the system of checks and balances that the 1999 act provides for in relation to ministerial decisions regarding Australia’s threatened species, marine species, migratory species, wildlife trade permits, whales and dolphins. On principle, we cannot support this bill.

The 2006 bill also undermines public consultation processes. Under the bill, the minister will determine key themes for heritage and species protection through a priority assessment list on advice from a scientific committee and the Australian Heritage Council. However, the minister can remove items from the priority assessment list with the only requirement being that he needs to notify the nominee and put the decision on the internet. In addition, the bill removes the five-year review section currently contained in the 1999 act. Under this section, matters of national environmental significance act as triggers in relation to the 1999 act’s framework for assessing the environmental impact of proposed actions. Labor want to see climate change, Australia’s current water crisis, coastal issues and other matters that we on this side of the House consider matters of national environmental significance added as triggers under the 1999 act. In contrast, the government wants to see any possible inclusion of any new triggers stymied by removing the mandatory five-year review process.

The 2006 bill also allows the minister to determine themes for an annual assessment period in relation to heritage and threatened species. This can relate to a specific species, geographical area or heritage theme such as colonial architecture. It opens up the possibility of exploitation and the politicisation of decision-making processes. The Humane Society of Victoria has suggested that the criteria for determining what is a priority have little relationship to conservation. In addition, nuclear actions, including the expansion of uranium mines and nuclear waste dumps, can be exempted from bioregional plans, endorsed policies and conservation agreements.

This bill is not about improving Australia’s environmental protection measures and safeguarding our unique wildlife and biodiversity, rather this bill is about undermining the very processes and procedures that are fundamental to the protection of Australia’s environment. It is a calculated attempt to impede and undermine environmental protection. It is essentially for this reason that I and my colleagues oppose this bill and call on the government to withdraw it.

Peter Andren (Calare, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act is this country’s main piece of environment and heritage legislation. Any action that is likely to have a significant impact on world heritage, national heritage, Ramsar wetlands, threatened species and ecological communities, listed migratory species and the marine environment must be referred to the minister for approval. Given that these matters have been recognised as holding national significance, this act is supposed to represent an extra level of scrutiny and protection recognised as lacking in the mash of state and territory legislation.

The Environment and Heritage Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006 before us represents over 400 pages of amendments that the government claims will cut red tape and provide flexibility. Introduced just last Thursday and originally slated for debate just three working days later, on Tuesday, legislators in this House have been given just four days to get their heads around what effect the 400 pages of amendments will have on the protection of our fragile environment and heritage. Not surprisingly, a Bills Digest is a long way from being completed.

Government MPs, I have heard, have not addressed the detail of these changes because they do not know them. Rather, they sing the praises of grossly inadequate environmental policies and defend the absence of any meaningful MRETs in this country. Not only that, the closing date for submissions to the Senate inquiry, again deferring this crucial legislation from the legislative chamber to the Senate for proper scrutiny, is not until the 27th of this month with the committee due to report on 17 November. What are we doing debating this stuff now? Go to your minister and ask him why we are sitting here debating this particular piece of legislation now. Further, this is just absolute contempt for this House and its members yet again. It is bad law-making that will have significant effects on our environment and heritage that cannot be undone.

Who is driving this rush? Does the diversion of the McArthur River in the Northern Territory by mining giant Xstrata have anything to do with this? Does mounting public concern over the expansion of mines around Australia, including longwall mining under bodies of water, have anything to do with this? Does Woodside’s insistence that it must start construction of its Pluto plant by year’s end on the Burrup Peninsula in WA have anything to do with this? The time available to study these changes dictates that only the barest of glances can be given to how this affects the protection of nationally significant environmental and heritage matters.

First up, it must be said that there are a number of positive changes. I will get them out of the way first. The taking of an action after it has been referred but before a decision has been made is now an offence. Public comments must be included in public environmental reports and EISs. Proponents are responsible for ensuring their contractors abide by approval conditions. Landholders commit offences if they allow breaches to occur on their land. The minister may reject approvals on the basis that impacts are substantially greater than anticipated. Native migratory species are now included. The minister and the Federal Court may issue remediation orders. These are commendable, but they are overshadowed by what this bill does allow. It starts with the very beginning of the development and protection process—the on-ground identification and assessment—which is already highly flawed and largely dependent on advice and information provided by the proponent’s own paid consultants.

Several years ago when debating the EPBC Act, I raised the issue of the varying and uneven patchwork of environment and heritage protection regimes from state to state and the abysmal history of state protection for environmental and heritage items. One need only look at the appalling history of indifference to the ancient rock art precinct in the Dampier Archipelago in Western Australia, the decimation of Tasmanian forests, the clear felling of native bushland in New South Wales or the proposed damming of prehistoric lungfish habitat in Queensland more recently.

At the time, I noted the need for parliamentary scrutiny of environmental management plans and assessments delegated to the states under bilateral agreements. But under these amendments, an accredited management plan for specific matters is no longer required before the Commonwealth delegates environmental and heritage approval powers to the states. No longer must a plan specific to ensuring maximum possible protection to any particular species, ecological community or heritage place with its own needs, threats and issues be referred to. Under the bill, a loose management arrangement or authorisation process put together by the states or territories will be considered as providing sufficient scrutiny and protection. These arrangements need not seek specified approval under the act. Any amendments to those arrangements and processes deemed minor by the minister may be made without tabling those changes.

The bill goes further, allowing the minister to declare a whole class of actions, such as mining, that may destroy any of the items or species listed under the EPBC Act as not needing approval—that is, not needing to even be referred to the EPBC Act—if those actions are in accordance with a bioregional plan. But where are those plans and what will they consist of? How meaningful will they be given the broadbrush approach that it seems they will apply? It suggests that actual on-ground site assessment or surveys before a proposed development may be deemed not necessary. The stated aims of bioregional plans certainly make sense prima facie—the pulling together of information over a whole bioregion with a complete strategic picture, providing advice on the proper environmental management of a whole ecosystem—but these plans are only huge brushstrokes and are dependent on the quality of diligence and expertise applied by the authors of those plans and the information that is publicly tabled and available.

We already know that so many consultants’ reports are not submitted to the relevant authorities, even though scientific licences require this happens. So many artefacts, species and threatened communities are not surveyed or properly assessed or are quietly put aside by compromised consultants and their proponent employers. Even more seriously, large consulting firms to the corporate giants are known to have been instrumental in developing and authoring environmental policy documents, which certainly raises questions about the value and purpose of such advice. Not only that, bioregional plans are not legislative instruments, thus they lack parliamentary oversight, and there is no public consultation process for those plans covering state areas.

To now determine that the broad, overarching sweep of such a bioregional plan is enough to allow development without even an on-ground site assessment or specific referral to the EPBC Act is not acceptable. To have the passing of finite profits or the passing of tangible profits out of a particular development deemed of greater value than the irreversible destruction of an infinitely valuable ecosystem or ancient heritage is unethical in the extreme, but to deem that such a development has no responsibility to even find out what it might be destroying is obscene. It suggests the corporate sector have every right to make extremely large profits by vandalising our environment and heritage with no commensurate responsibilities specific to their actions.

It is also important to note that while many nuclear actions, such as nuclear power plants or enrichment plants, may not be exempted under bioregional plans or conservation agreements, uranium mining and nuclear waste dumps do not fall under this prohibited exemption list, which raises the question of uranium mining in World Heritage listed Kakadu. Let us not downplay the danger of uranium. It is not a clean energy. Out of sight and out of mind waste does not make it any more clean than floor sweepings under the carpet make a house clean. With a history of leakage into the environment, from mine tailings and intermediate nuclear waste, contamination of groundwater and high-level waste from nuclear power generation having a half-life of about 4.5 billion years, allowing uranium mining and nuclear waste dumps to be exempted from an act that aims to protect the environment—words fail me.

The minister may also exempt actions from requiring approval under the EPBC Act if they are declared under a conservation agreement, but there is absolutely no penalty for noncompliance with such an agreement unless an ordered remediation under a conservation agreement is not followed. Instead of ensuring that cumulative impacts that flow from significant actions are taken into account under the EPBC Act, this bill ensures that only the direct impacts are considered in isolation—surely a contradiction to the whole idea of bioregional plans. This confirms that there is no vehicle to truly consider all the effects of a development, such as greenhouse gas emissions and their effect on our environment, global warming and, dare I say, our farmers. The minister may now make an assessment of proposed action by depending solely on the referral information provided by the proponent. This is certainly putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.

Although this bill allows public requests for reconsideration of controlled action, elsewhere in the bill public input into the processes is diminished. The minister may use commercial-in-confidence excuses to withhold information, public consultation time lines are now limited to 10 business days, and appeals to the AAT for a review of any decision made personally by the minister in relation to certain permits is no longer possible. Under this bill the nomination, assessment and listing of places on the National Heritage List is replaced by a regime that seriously compromises protection of places that hold national and international heritage value, limits outside access to the process and places absolute discretion in the hands of the minister to determine what may or may not be added or even assessed in any given year.

Currently, any person or member of the Australian Heritage Council may nominate a place for the National Heritage List at any time and the council must assess that nomination. But the proposal is that, just once a year—a window of 40 days—the minister will invite nominations for inclusion. The minister may determine a heritage theme to be given priority. Incredibly, this theme need not be decided with advice from the Heritage Council. The minister may reject any nomination without referring it to the Heritage Council. The council gives the minister a revised priority assessment list, which of course has to take note of the minister’s chosen theme for the year.

Who and what gives any environment minister the vision, the understanding or the background to determine issues of this importance? What, except, I would suggest, the imperative of the commercial considerations that predominate right through this piece of legislation. That is what this is all about. Where is the wisdom that a Senator Campbell, or any minister, has to handle this sort of responsibility? It is absolutely outrageous. Talk about executive dominance of the processes! This is just a dictatorial approach to the most important thing facing this country and this globe, and here we have this power being given to one individual. It is amazing.

Nominations that have been determined as needing the protection and recognition of inclusion on the Heritage List may not make it to the priority list—indeed, they may continue to be rolled over year after year without ever making it. Even inclusion on the priority list does not guarantee assessment. The council does not need to check for extra information before rejecting the idea of even assessing a nomination and the minister may change the list in any way. Even if the Australian Heritage Council—a pre-eminent scientific expert body—does assess a place as deserving or needing inclusion on the Heritage List, the minister may decide not to include the assessed place on the list, informed with advice from ‘any source’. Not only that, but a decision to deal with a request for emergency listing is dependent on the whim of the minister.

It is incredible to think that the industries on the Burrup Peninsula in Western Australia—where a nomination of that incredibly special place for the Heritage List has sent the industries there and the governments, state and federal, into a lather—may have their advice, namely, that no national heritage values exist there, taken into account in this process. The Dampier Archipelago, where the world’s most extraordinary outdoor art gallery of hundreds of thousands—in fact, up to a million—ancient rock art images, tens of thousands of years older than the great pyramids of Egypt, is threatened by industrial development. It is a threat that has been made for well over 40 years.

I went to a briefing the other day with Woodside—a very pleasant engagement and discussion—and the point was made that the North West Shelf development has been there for many years. However, it must be asked why the joint venture partners on the North West Shelf are not prepared, and why the Western Australian government is not prepared, to enact legislation that enables the Pluto project to be moved to that region? It seems as if they are being squeezed out by corporate, competitive jealousies. Obviously those things should not take precedence over the protection of this World Heritage quality site. Despite the Heritage Council’s assessment that the place far exceeds the requirements for national heritage listing—indeed for World Heritage listing—under this bill the minister may choose to accept only the industry’s advice. Perhaps he may direct that such a place where there is ongoing destruction of ancient rock art images does not fit into his chosen theme for the year.

Need I ask whether the nomination of the Dampier Archipelago or the Burrup Peninsula to the National Heritage List and the lobbying here in Canberra this week have anything to do with these sorts of amendments? It would have made sense if we had had that lobbying, if we had had the opportunity to sit back and look at a draft of this, if we had had the benefit of the Bills Digest, if we had had all of that expert input and if we had had the inquiry—and pray that we ever have legislative inquiries into legislation in this place; that may happen one day down the track, many moons ahead, when we have a proper process to consider the most crucial of legislation coming into this place. But no, we have the lobbyists, we have the rushed legislation and we have claims of a proper and democratic approach to considering issues of such import in this place. What a load of bunkum! I could think of a stronger word but it would be unparliamentary. What a load of codswallop it is. Need I ask whether the nomination of the Dampier Archipelago or the Burrup Peninsula is part of this matter before us? Of course it is.

Certainly other changes in this bill already prevent newly listed environmental and heritage values and places from holding up any development already approved or in the pipeline. While I recognise the natural justice issues in all of this, I believe that those listed values must still be taken into account. Unbelievably, the minister no longer must keep the list of threatened species and ecological communities up to date. What on earth is the purpose of listing them if not to attempt to conserve species and avert extinction? It is extraordinary to think the effort to protect our environment is dependent on whether the minister of the day thinks it is worth the trouble. The need for the government to carry out biodiversity surveys in Commonwealth areas is even removed. The minister does not feel it is the role of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act to consider ensuring management includes recovery, as this bill removes the compulsory requirements to create recovery plans. Even if the minister decides such a plan is necessary, the department has up to six years to write one, for heaven’s sake. Six years is a long time for an ecological community.

Between one- and two-thirds of all plant and animal species are predicted to become extinct during the next century. Australia is one of only 17 countries in the world that has species found nowhere else on the planet. It is ranked first for mammals and reptiles, second for birds and fifth for higher plants and amphibians. Destruction of habitat and ecological communities kills millions of Australian animals over a short space of time. Australia already has the worst record of recent mammal extinction in the world. Many of our 1,500 currently listed species could well become extinct in 10 to 20 years. Seventy-five per cent of our rainforests and 43 per cent of our forests have been cleared. Our rivers are already dead or dying.

Our planet, our children and our grandchildren face a very bleak environmental future indeed, with global warming the result of global abuse. Yet under this leadership we put our heads in the dry sands of our riverbeds, refuse to set any meaningful renewable energy target, and facilitate rather than reduce our carbon footprint, not only here but right across the globe. When it is said that we contribute only 1.8 per cent of the carbon emissions we are not including the impact that our exports, particularly coal, have on that global output of carbon and greenhouse gases. Of course we have to look at clean coal technology and of course we have to look at the existing processes, but we must take responsibility for our true contribution to the world carbon footprint. Therein lies the duplicity of our global position. In the meantime, while the rest of the world is waking up to the enormity and urgency of addressing climate change and global warming this government plays the fiddle while the country is burning around it. I strongly support the second reading amendment and I reject this legislation.

Jennie George (Throsby, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I must commend the member for Calare for his most comprehensive commentary and analysis of the Environment and Heritage Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006 that has come to this parliament with such unseemly haste. As a member of parliament, I think it is the first time I am making comments on a bill when I do not even have the option of referring to credible independent advice from the Parliamentary Library—no Bills Digest is available; I am told it may be another 10 days before one comes before us. It is totally preposterous that we are being asked to debate a bill, which contains 409 pages of amendments to this government’s major environmental law, in these circumstances. We were told in the second reading speech by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment and Heritage that:

The aim is to continue to strengthen environment and heritage protection while streamlining some of the provisions of the EPBC Act and providing greater capacity and flexibility for more strategic approaches to be employed.

I must say that, in looking at the rationale for the introduction of this legislation, I agree with the member for Calare. Most of the comments made in that second reading speech leave me with a very uneasy feeling that this legislation is driven by commercial imperatives rather than the professed commitment to strengthening and enhancing environmental and heritage protection.

There is no doubt in my mind that this legislation is being rushed through both houses of parliament, with the legislation, in the government’s agenda, due to be decided and resolved by the end of November. A serious major piece of environmental law that governs the operations of the nation is being rushed through with unseemly haste. The bill has been referred to the Senate Standing Committee on Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, which is due to report in mid-November, but we are debating this bill even before we have had the opportunity to look at public submissions and public commentary.

Peter Andren (Calare, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What’s new?

Jennie George (Throsby, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes—what’s new? It is an appalling abuse of process and just shows the arrogance of this government. So I want to begin my analysis by saying that the government has to be condemned for pushing this bill through both houses without a proper time frame for consideration or without proper public consultation processes.

I want to go back to the argument about how these proposals are being driven very largely by commercial imperatives. I will quote the parliamentary secretary in his second reading speech. He said:

… the operation of the EPBC Act can be improved, particularly for those who make applications or nominations under the act. Operational improvements can be achieved by reducing processing time and decision points affecting the environmental assessment and approval of proposed developments, using more strategic approaches, and providing greater incentive for development interests, the states and territories, and local government to engage with the act earlier in their planning cycles.

He goes on:

The proposed changes will include greater capacity to reduce processing time for assessments and approvals of developments referred under the act by reducing the number of mandatory steps taken by applicants and enabling the Australian government to make decisions on different act approval stages simultaneously. A new process will be introduced to enable the government to make quicker decisions on more straightforward proposals.

But when you look at the detail—and the devil is often in the detail of the bills that we debate, and I again commend the member for Calare for taking the time to analyse the 409 pages of very technical amendments—you already hear the alarm bells ringing. Even a cursory first examination of the detail shows this to be the case—that the amendments will curtail third-party appeal rights, the amendments will undermine public consultation processes and the amendments will allow the further politicisation of decision-making processes on very important matters relating to the protection of our heritage and our environment. Not surprisingly, but much to the shame of the government, in a major rewriting of the premier environmental act this government fails to deal with the major environmental issues that are facing our nation: climate change and the water crisis that is facing communities across the length and breadth of our nation.

This morning I also want to draw attention to the scathing comments made by members of the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills, whose report was tabled yesterday in the Senate. Senator Ray quite rightly draws attention to the expansion of the range of enforcement powers and penalties, which he argues are proposed without justification and appropriate safeguards. Even more significantly, in speaking to Senator Ray’s motion, a Liberal senator and member of this government from Western Australia, Senator Johnston, had this to say about the explanatory memorandum—the one that comes with the bill in the absence of an independent voice from the Parliamentary Library through the Bills Digest:

This explanatory memorandum is probably one of the most appalling I have ever seen in the short time I have been in the Senate. It discloses no motivation, no reasoning and no justification for some of the most draconian powers that this parliament can conceivably and possibly enact: rights of search and seizure without warrant, rights of personal frisking without warrant. This is under the umbrella of a piece of environmental protection legislation … The draftsman discloses an obliviousness to the conventions, formalities, reports and guidelines that have been laid down over a long period of time with respect to the propriety of the administration of powers and penalties … Again, under the umbrella of an environmental protection act, I find that very interesting, particularly in the face of the explanatory memorandum disclosing no real reason or explanation for that.

He concludes his commentary by saying:

... I think this legislation should go back to the drawing board.

Full marks to the senator. Full marks to a member of the Senate, a member of this government, who is so damning and scathing in his criticisms of this legislation as to conclude his remarks by saying ‘I think this legislation should go back to the drawing board’. Unfortunately, the Minister for the Environment and Heritage is in China. It is a shame that he is not here to hear what the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills unanimously concluded yesterday.

The parliamentary secretary, with a degree of obfuscation about the commercial imperatives that are driving this bill, pretends that the bill before us is also to do with meeting the emerging environmental issues of the 21st century. He says:

One of the major changes proposed by the bill is a practical proposal to put in place a strategic framework that will allow the Australian government greater flexibility and capacity to deal with the emerging environmental issues of the 21st century.

That sounds fine, doesn’t it, but amazingly the most serious global issue, that of global warming and climate change, is not even dealt with in this bill. It is quite pathetic. The government’s major piece of environment legislation and the 409 pages of amendments that we are discussing today do not even deal with the most serious issue confronting the globe. The inconvenient truth continues to be too inconvenient for this government, but the community at large is understanding the need for this government to take decisive action to deal with this most fundamental issue. One would have thought that in the bill we are debating today that issue would at least get some attention. That is sadly missing and that really important issue has been left to be picked up in the amendment moved on behalf of this side of the chamber by our shadow minister for the environment.

There is no doubt that the Howard government have left us unprepared for the dramatic challenges that lie ahead. They have no national plan to prepare for the impact of climate change. They have no national plan to cut Australia’s soaring greenhouse pollution. The Howard government seem to be interested in neither prevention nor cure. We desperately need a national climate change adaption strategy and a plan for the future. The consequences of climate change are very real—ask anybody in the community: more severe weather, reduced rainfall, extended droughts. All this, of course, will have an impact in terms of employment and economic growth if left unaddressed.

Climate change is baking our cities and reaping despair in the bush. It is there for all to see. Even the sceptics cannot deny the hard science behind what is happening on a worldwide basis. Global warming and climate change are the greatest challenges of the 21st century and yet this bill is silent on these challenges. Where are the government’s plans to avoid dangerous climate change? Where are the government’s plans to prepare our economy for a carbon constrained world? Where are the government’s plans to get our energy mix right? Where are the government’s plans to seize the opportunities that would come with the ratification of Kyoto and increase the MRET so that we can get really serious about renewable sources of energy?

Getting Australia’s energy mix right is absolutely central to cutting our soaring greenhouse pollution. We need a diverse energy mix—a portfolio of flexible energy strategies that include clean coal technology, solar and wind power and research into hydrogen, wave power and geothermal technology. We need a strong national commitment to energy efficiency. There is not a word on these issues in this bill we are debating. The community well understands that nuclear power will not be a part of the energy mix under a Labor government. Yet, true to form, the Prime Minister has an ideological obsession with nuclear power, and he is now masking that obsession in the pretence of trying to deal with global warming.

I want to quote some comments made by the eminent environmentalist David Suzuki in a television interview yesterday evening. The interviewer said: ‘John Howard says he believes strongly that nuclear power now has to be part of the equation in the search for an answer to climate change.’ Dr Suzuki said:

Well, I find that statement so lacking in credibility. This is a man, for years and years, who has denied the reality of climate change caused by human beings even though his scientific community in Australia has been saying that for more than 15 years, that this is a serious issue and Australia is particularly vulnerable. So for this man, now having denied all these years, to suddenly come out and say nuclear is the only option, I don’t see how he has any credibility on this issue at all. I have no idea why suddenly nuclear’s on the agenda but I would think that anyone would say we have to look at our whole energy policy, look at how it relates to water, how it looks to many other issues—of sea level rise and so on—and then having had a major consideration, come up with a plan that we can commit to.

I agree with David Suzuki. What is lacking in this debate we are having about so-called environmental and heritage protection is the fact that there is not one word about any plans to deal with the challenge of global warming and climate change. We know that the Prime Minister and his government support uranium enrichment. We know from comments made in the last few days that they support nuclear power plants in Australia, even though they know there are no answers to the critical questions of cost, safety, nuclear waste and nuclear proliferation.

It is interesting that in the details of this bill it appears that legal obstacles to the expansion of uranium mining and nuclear waste dumps are to be removed. I quote from a release I saw yesterday from the Australia Institute which says:

The Environment and Heritage Legislation Amendment Bill

the one that we are discussing now—

will enable future uranium mines and nuclear waste dumps to bypass environmental assessment processes and public scrutiny.

“The Government is surreptitiously inserting a loophole in the federal environmental laws so that it can avoid the standard environmental assessment procedures in relation to controversial nuclear proposals” ...

“The exemptions would allow new uranium mines and nuclear waste dumps to open without being subject to important assessment and public accountability procedures that are designed to guarantee basic environmental safety standards.

“If the amendments are enacted, the scope for public involvement in nuclear assessment procedures could be significantly reduced” ...

So they claim this legislation is about protecting our environment and heritage and looking after community considerations to do with the major issues facing our globe, yet hidden in the detail of this legislation is the possibility that the nuclear agenda could escape the kind of public scrutiny that should be there.

The bill also provides even further opportunity for the politicisation of issues relating to environmental and heritage protection. We know that the current minister is quite adept at this. We have a number of examples already of this kind of politicisation. Remember the decision to block the Bald Hills wind farm project? That was all about marginal seat politics and not about saving the orange-bellied parrot, despite the protestations of the minister.

In the words of the shadow minister for environment and heritage, even Monty Python could not have scripted Senator Ian Campbell’s decision to protect one theoretical parrot every 1,000 years and use that as a rationalisation to block a major infrastructure project—a renewable energy project. And yet the same minister is in China at the moment opening a wind farm project. You drive out the renewable sector from Australia and you go over to China to preside over the opening of a wind farm!

Regrettably this bill hands even more power to the minister—more power to make the kinds of political decisions we saw in the Bald Hills fiasco. I was really pleased that the minister was humiliated by the decision of the Federal Court that required him to reconsider ‘according to law’ his intervention to block the Bald Hills wind farm in Victoria.

Interestingly enough, that Bald Hills project was supported by the minister’s own department, for environmental and scientific reasons, but we know it was blocked by the minister for blatant political reasons. If the minister is using his powers under current Commonwealth law then you can only hazard a guess as to what will happen in future. The member for Rankin last night ably highlighted the dangers in the proposals that will give this minister, if this bill is passed, the final say on the protection of heritage sites across the length and breadth of our country.

The double standard of the current minister is most evident in his trip to China to officially open an Australian company’s wind farm in China. What hypocrisy. He cannot escape the fact that same company had this to say:

...the current project outlook in Australia is not strong and Roaring 40s—

that is the company—

hopes that, having seen what can be done in China, Minister Campbell will be encouraged to consider policies in Australia to increase the utilisation of our country’s great renewable energy capabilities and resources.

Renewable energy companies are investing in China because China has a renewable energy target of 15 per cent compared to our pathetic two per cent MRET. It has been kept at two per cent because some remaining sceptics unfortunately reside on the government benches. In a recent interview with Laurie Oakes, the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources, Ian Macfarlane—who is a great proponent of building nuclear capacity here in Australia—had this to say:

LAURIE OAKES: OK. Climate change, you are a climate change sceptic, aren’t you?

IAN MACFARLANE: Well I am a sceptic of the connection between emissions and climate change...

I suggest to the minister that sitting through An Inconvenient Truth will hopefully convert the last remaining sceptics who happen to be sitting over there on the government benches. The Australian community is no longer sceptical. Just have a look at the Sunrise program’s ‘Cool the Globe’ campaign, which is addressing the issues of climate change and global warming. Last time I looked, more than 45,000 Australians had committed to the ‘Cool the Globe’ campaign. People out there know because they see it every day, but we have sceptics in here who are pushing the nuclear barrow and turning their eyes from the possibilities that we have in this country of really giving a push-start to our renewable energy sector.

The amendment moved by the shadow minister, Mr Albanese, gives the Howard government yet another opportunity to join with Labor in a bipartisan approach in instituting a national plan to deal with a major crisis facing this and other nations across the world. Instead, we have had a bill come before us in unseemly haste without any mention of these major challenges. We again call on the government to ensure that climate change is properly factored into environmental decision making under this act. Specifically, we ask that they support a climate change trigger to ensure large-scale greenhouse polluting projects are properly assessed before approval is given. We will oppose the bill unless the government agrees to Labor’s amendments. (Time expired)

Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are 409 pages of amendments to the Commonwealth’s major environmental laws and, would you believe it, there is not one mention of climate change. Given the attitude of this government to climate change, I know I should not be too surprised about that. But this time the government has really outdone itself with the Environment and Heritage Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006.

The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 is Australia’s major environmental law. It establishes the framework for assessing the environmental impacts of proposed actions in relation to world heritage properties, Ramsar’s wetlands of international importance, nationally threatened species, ecological communities, migratory species, nuclear actions, the Commonwealth’s marine environment and those places which are listed on the National Heritage List. So it is quite an important piece of legislation. This government argues now that this bill reduces the process time and cuts the costs of development interests. It also curtails third party appeal rights, undermines the public consultation process and further politicises decision making.

This government has swept the pool on this one. It has managed to introduce legislation that implements the exact opposite of what the Australian community wants. This is quite startling. Not only does it not mention climate change, not only does it not include a single measure aimed at reducing greenhouse pollution, but this bill also goes against the desire of the Australian public. It is staggering. This bill will fundamentally change the way in which the Australian environment is protected, and neither the parliament nor the community will have the opportunity to consider the implications of this bill because, just like everything else this government wants to achieve, or hide from the Australian public, the government is going to ram it through this parliament. It has been rammed through this parliament with very little discussion, little debate and, worse, little concern from this government.

This has been an amazing week. Earlier this week we had a new regime introduced for the regulation of Australia’s media. That was certainly rammed through this parliament. Now we have a wholly new regime about protecting Australia’s environment. Similarly, it is going to be rammed through this parliament. It is staggering. The government is elected to administer public policy, and this is not good public policy.

Most people with any concern about the future of Australia’s environment have long known that the government does not share that concern. Sure it pretends to when it comes to a marginal seat, when one of those creatures is at stake, but generally this government has exhibited an attitude that it could not care less about protecting the Australian environment.

Over the last decade, while this government has been in office, Australia’s environment has been under sustained pressure. Water resources are under strain and almost gone, to some extent, in various areas. The amount of land affected by salinity has increased astronomically, and Australia is facing a plant and animal extinction crisis. It is not a record that this government often points to; nevertheless, it is a fact. I doubt that it will make it into the bevy of material that government members distribute in their newsletters but, as I said, it is the case and it is certainly a fact.

Since the government came to office, nearly every single measure of environmental health has gone backwards. As I mentioned, Australia has a plant and animal extinction crisis. Twenty per cent of our species are threatened with extinction by the end of this century, and the number of terrestrial and animal species listed as extinct, endangered or vulnerable rose by 41 per cent between 1995 and 2005. Disturbingly, Australia is the world leader in mammal extinctions. This is a disgraceful record, and the passage of this bill does nothing to try to address that. Therefore, it does not look good for our future in that regard.

As I mentioned at the outset, I am stunned that the government has introduced 409 pages of amendments into this place without a single reference to climate change. The science behind climate change is well established. Apart from a small minority of virtual extremists, it is essentially accepted. Very few governments in the world persist with the attitude that climate change is not a reality. Most are not persisting with that dogmatic attitude to climate change and I would be confident that most governments, where they have introduced changes to major environmental laws, would include aspects to combat the effect of the onslaught of climate change.

Very few people continue to ignore the real and significant impact that climate change not only will have on our economy and society but, quite frankly, is already having within our communities. Many businesses have accepted the need to address the impact on the economy and have accepted the fact that they need to address their levels of carbon emissions. But still the Howard government continues to ignore climate change. Only three weeks ago Richard Branson committed $3 billion to abatement measures, and we have this bill representing 409 pages of the government’s efforts to do the exact opposite—that is, to ignore climate change itself.

I noted earlier that the science around climate change is largely accepted. The impact that climate change is having on our natural environment is, indeed, largely accepted by the community, let alone the scientific community around the world. For those who do not believe that change is taking place, you only need to consider our weather of last week. In addition to the fact that Australia, in some parts of the country, has just finished the driest winter on record, we have just had the hottest and driest August in 106 years and, in Sydney last week, at the start of October, temperatures were well above 30 degrees. We have already seen the demand that that is causing with respect to bushfire brigades and the warnings that were put out last week. It is very clear that change is already occurring. As much as this government might want to ignore the fact that this is occurring, as much as this government might want to avoid its international responsibility and, indeed, as much as this government might not want to admit that it has got it wrong, climate change is happening now.

Last week, the Prime Minister marched into this House and, in effect, admitted to getting it wrong on the skills crisis. He admitted that to the parliament and, therefore, to the Australian people. I call upon him to do the same when it comes to admitting that they have got it wrong on climate change. We know he can do it because he did it only last week. He even conceded to the media, when dealing with the skills crisis, that it was better late than never. With respect, I never took him to task on that. I thought that, at least, that was somewhat honest coming from the Prime Minister. He admitted to getting it wrong and, as he put it to the media, ‘The changes we’re going to bring about are better late than never.’

Although I have a certain amount of respect for the comment—and certainly I have some criticism, in that he has taken 10 years to get to that realisation—I hope we do not have the same approach taken when it comes to climate change. When it comes to climate change, it is not an option to be better late than never. It is not an option that we continue to stick our heads in the sand and try to pretend that this is not a real phenomenon. For many people, communities, species, plants and animals, better late than never will mean never. These changes are occurring now and they do require the attention of this government.

A better-late-than-never approach may in fact be too late, as we hear from scientists, for some islands, particularly Pacific islands. Following the Prime Minister’s recent comment about gloomy climate change predictions, on the 7.30 Report former US Vice President Al Gore said:

He’s increasingly alone in that view among people who’ve really looked at the science ... The so-called “gloomy predictions” are predictions of what would happen if we did not act. It’s not a question of mood. It’s a question of reality.

Mr Gore went on to say:

And, you know, there’s no longer debate over whether the earth is round or flat. Though there are some few people who still think it’s flat, we generally ignore that view because the evidence has mounted to the point where we understand that it shouldn’t be taken seriously.

The Australian people should take the view that this government’s level of inaction when it comes to climate change should be taken seriously. It is too serious a problem to ignore and it is certainly too serious a problem for the government not to show leadership on.

Labor has called on the government repeatedly to address this issue, to identify and acknowledge that the issue is real but also to show leadership. After all, a government is elected not to govern in the present but to make decisions that influence our future, the future of our kids and the environment that we wish to bequeath to those who follow us. This is just not occurring. Labor has shown leadership on this issue of climate change and will continue to do so. It will be a central plank in our policy. I have to say that I am very proud that we have shown that leadership throughout our communities, because it is a reflection of our ongoing commitment to this country and to the sustained and appropriate development of industry while having regard to the sensitivities imposed by the environment.

Labor members understand the importance of the problem, and that is why Labor has committed itself to ratifying the Kyoto protocol, cutting greenhouse pollution, establishing a greenhouse emissions trading mechanism, substantially increasing the mandatory renewable energy target, the MRET, and establishing a climate change trigger—which has now been formally rejected by this government—with the introduction of the private member’s bill by the member for Grayndler.

This government continues to resist the need to ratify Kyoto, sticking to its alternative, the Asia-Pacific climate pact. If Kyoto is so bad, you have to ask yourself: why is it that every other country that is involved in the Prime Minister’s alternative model—that being the Asia-Pacific climate pact—has already ratified the Kyoto protocol? All countries other than Australia and the United States have done so. Republican Senator John McCain is someone who ordinarily would not be a standout for supporting Labor ideals or anything that Labor has to say. Nevertheless, he said the following about the Howard government’s position on the Asia-Pacific climate pact:

The pact amounts to nothing more than a nice little public-relations ploy. It has almost no meaning. They aren’t even committing money to the effort, much less enacting rules to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

That is not a bad commentary from a Republican senator in that regard. But there is more. The Chinese ministry for foreign affairs said:

This pact has no power for legal restrictions. It is a complement to the Kyoto treaty, not a replacement.

These are the views of some of the major players in the world on the government’s poor facsimile of the Kyoto protocol, and, if this is the calibre of people who are criticising the Australian government over its lack of action, one can only conclude that the time for hiding from climate change has well and truly passed.

Comments made yesterday by the Canadian environmentalist Dr David Suzuki have been reported pretty widely in our newspapers. He has commented on the Howard government’s approach to Kyoto. The member for Throsby made some remarks about this, but I would like to pick up on one thing that Dr Suzuki had to say. He said:

I believe that future generations will look back on the inactivity, the unwillingness to do anything, as a crime against future generations.

That is a reasonably strong statement from an environmentalist of his calibre. Future generations probably will damn us for our failure to act and to act now.

To say that I am disappointed by some of the contents of this bill would be an understatement. To say that I am amazed that in 409 pages of amendments to the government’s major environmental law there is not a single mention of climate change would also be an understatement. The Australian people expect more. The Australian public recognises the real and present danger to our economy and our society if climate change is not addressed. The Australian public is doing its bit but it is lacking the leadership that it expects the government to provide.

The Prime Minister and others continue to argue that taking action on climate change will cost jobs. I disagree with that. As anyone who has ever dealt with businesses going through change will know, businesses look for certainty. Certainty encourages investment decisions and innovation, as businesses try to get ahead of their competitors and protect their market share. Give businesses certainty, introduce measures to address climate change over a period of time, but set out the markers now. Allow businesses to understand where the government expects them to be and how they should achieve that within a reasonable time frame. There is no need to surprise them and introduce changes overnight. That has not worked in the past and it will not work here. But to lay down a series of markers that business can work with will establish certainty and will contribute a lot to reforming and changing business practices. Give Australian businesses certainty about what is expected of them and I am pretty confident that they will move in new and innovative ways to meet the goals which are established.

I am opposed to this bill. I believe that all fair-minded members of this place should also oppose it. I am opposed to it because it will decrease accountability, it will increase the strength of development interests and it will all but silence the public in speaking out against development interests that are not in the interests of their communities. If the National Party members who come to this place to represent the agricultural communities really care about those communities, they should be voting with Labor on this bill—and voting it down. I strongly support the second reading amendment moved by the opposition.

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak against the Environment and Heritage Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006. This bill contains 409 pages of amendments to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, our main piece of environmental legislation in this federal parliament. It provides a framework for assessing environmental impacts of proposed actions in relation to World Heritage properties, Ramsar wetlands of international importance, nationally threatened species and ecological communities, migratory species, nuclear actions, the Commonwealth marine environment and places on the National Heritage List.

The government is trying to put forward an argument that this bill reduces processing time and costs for development interests and gives priority to proposals of national importance. The reality is that this bill curtails third party appeal rights, undermines public consultation and further politicises the decision making process in relation to heritage sites. This bill is another attempt by the government to not only avoid its role as the steward of Australia’s environment and history but to actively undermine the preservation of our natural environment and our historically significant sites. It is for this reason that I support the amendment moved by the member for Grayndler.

The problems with this sloppy and potentially dangerous legislation are many, and we have heard from many of the other speakers that, despite its 409 pages of amendments, the bill has failed to address the key challenge facing Australia’s environment. In 409 pages of amendments, the term ‘climate change’ is not mentioned once. The challenge of climate change is that it has the potential to forever alter the way that we live our lives. This so-called environment legislation completely ignores what is so obvious to everybody else. The bill provides the Minister for the Environment and Heritage with additional powers to establish priority themes and determine which applications will be fast tracked.

Many of our key heritage sites will be placed under threat of development, as the minister will be the only person with authority to determine which sites are of strategic national interest. Clause 194K(3) of the bill states:

In exercising the power to make changes—

to the priority list—

the Minister may have regard to any matters that the Minister considers appropriate.

That broadens out the matters that he has to take into consideration under the current act. That is a blatant undermining of the listing process and it puts unprecedented power in the hands of the minister.

Another reason I am opposed to this bill is because of the continuing arrogance of the government in trying to ram these 409 pages of amendments through with limited consultation. My understanding is that these amendments were not presented until relatively late last week. That has given minimal time for those in the environment movement to understand the amendments—let alone to understand the implications of them. There has been minimal time to fully explore the repercussions of the bill, there has been no consultation, and there has been reliance on a report that was written about reducing red tape for business, not about creating environmental or heritage protection measures. That is yet further evidence of the government’s arrogance.

The Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills concluded yesterday, in the limited time that it had to look at this bill, that it has been poorly drafted. The words of the committee, which is dominated by members of the coalition government and chaired by a Liberal Party member, are that, ‘This bill needs to go back to the drawing board.’ I cannot think of a more damning indictment of a bill than to have the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills, chaired by one of the government’s own members, come down with a report that says that this bill needs to go back to the drawing board. It is not a particularly good look for the government to have something like that occur. What will be an even worse look for the government is if it ignores what the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills has told it.

It is no wonder that Australians feel that the government is out of touch when it comes to issues of environmental and heritage protection. The League of Historical Cities 10th world conference is taking place in my electorate of Ballarat from 29 October, with delegates from all over the world coming together to discuss issues surrounding heritage sites. In Ballarat we are fortunate to have some of the most wonderful heritage buildings that people from all over the world come to visit—not just for this four-day conference but throughout the year. Our city and the city of Launceston are, in my view, two of the most beautifully preserved built heritage cities in the country. It beggars belief how anyone who is concerned about our environment and concerned about preserving heritage, whether built or natural, could support a bill that threatens to remove fundamental legislative protections.

As I said at the start of my speech, this bill, with its 409 pages of amendments to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, ignores the simple fact that climate change and global warming are devastating our natural environment. It offers no initiatives to protect our environment from the ravages of climate change. In 409 pages of environmental legislation, it is as though climate change just does not exist. Over the past few days, it has suddenly occurred to the Prime Minister that we are in drought. He has been on the airwaves on it, and no doubt in the break he will be heading out in his rural outfit to get some media footage with farmers in devastated drought communities. Whilst I absolutely support the government’s measures to support farmers and to try and help them, I cannot believe that the government can have the audacity to talk about the drought without acknowledging that it is the long-term effects of climate change that we are experiencing.

Prime Minister, after almost a decade of drought conditions in Australia it is time to wake up to the fact that this is about climate change. Complex environmental problems such as drought, increased bushfire risk and loss of biodiversity will certainly continue if this government does not pay attention to dealing with the issue of climate change seriously. It needs decent environmental legislation that does everything it can to protect our fragile environment—not this bill with its 409 pages of amendments, which do not even mention the words ‘climate change’ once.

In regional areas we know climate change is dramatically affecting us. Today’s front page of the Ballarat Courier runs with the headline ‘Lake runs dry’. This lake is the sporting, social and cultural heart of our city. It is the site of the 1956 Olympics rowing events—the anniversary of which is to be commemorated this year on a dry lake bed. As someone who did row on that lake, I find it is absolutely devastating that this lake, right at the heart of our community, has run completely dry.

This bill, the government’s major piece of environmental legislation, does not mention climate change even once. The member for Grayndler introduced a private member’s bill back in 2005 to introduce a climate change trigger into the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. The government have never allowed that bill to be debated, despite having that proposal to introduce a climate change trigger before them since 2001. This legislation effectively means that is now being formally rejected by the Howard government. This bill, rather than protecting our heritage sites, will place further pressure on our already fragile environment. The Humane Society International and the World Wildlife Fund have criticised this legislation for removing environmental protections, such as mandatory recovery plans for threatened species, and for wiping 500 threatened ecological communities from the waiting list for protection.

So when the member for Flinders bangs on about having added X number of animals and Y number of birds to the protected list, perhaps he would be good enough to mention the fact that during its 10 years in power the Howard government has presided over a 41 per cent increase in species becoming extinct, endangered or vulnerable. Perhaps he could point out that Australia has the dishonour of leading the world in mammal extinctions. The government’s response to such horrifying facts is to remove the few legislative requirements that exist to ensure the protection of critical habitat. Despite the government’s impressive rhetoric about the success of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, the simple fact is that it has failed to protect our environment and it has failed to protect and conserve our biodiversity. None of this government’s failed initiatives have come close to halting the devastation of our natural environment.

Across the country, water levels are dropping and the government is producing bills that ease the way for developers instead of protecting our water supplies. A quarter of all Australia’s surface water management areas have reached limits that make them unsustainable. This means that we stand on the brink of losing a quarter of our surface water supply. The Murray River, for so long a key component of the water supply and environmental health of the eastern states of Australia, is at its lowest level on record. The water from the Murray River system feeds into the important agricultural lands of Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia. The government’s promises on the Murray River have been absolutely false ones. They have not resulted in one extra drop of water for the Murray—not one single drop of extra water going into the Murray system. As Kim Beazley, the Leader of the Opposition, said in Sydney: if words could be turned into water then, with all the words coming from the parliamentary secretary for water, South Australia would be awash by now.

Being from Ballarat, a heritage city, I find the notion of giving the minister additional power over heritage listings an appalling abuse of government power. The minister will determine themes on an annual basis for the assessment of heritage sites and threatened species. So again this government places direct, unaccountable control of potentially controversial programs in the hands of a minister who has already shown that he will take political factors into account in his decision making process rather than environmental or scientific considerations—a minister who is now faced with a serious decision over the Burrup Peninsula. I think with this legislation and this minister’s unprecedented new powers we can kiss the rock art at the peninsula goodbye.

Of course, in the past the rights of a third party to appeal have helped to keep these processes open and transparent. This bill removes the rights of third parties and in doing so closes the door on much of the public scrutiny that previous ministers have had to face in making their decisions. This minister has demonstrated a willingness, time and time again, to interfere in the process to try and expedite a political victory. In the Bald Hills wind farm debacle and the Victorian Alpine National Park, the minister ignored independent scientific advice and environmental best practice to push his political agenda.

What arrogance from the government to increase the minister’s power and at the same time remove the right of public appeal and scrutiny! It is important to be clear about just how much power the minister is being given in this new bill. The minister’s grab for power is so far-reaching that he can now refuse to even consider the protection of a species if it has been rejected before. There is no clause that takes into account the potential worsening of the species’ status due to a loss of habitat or for any other reason. When you consider that 17 million hectares of currently productive soil could be rendered unproductive through salinity by 2050, it is highly likely that many species will require a reassessment.

The minister is not even required to permit a reassessment. It would be possible for the minister to turn around and say, ‘I know that there are only two orange-bellied parrots left, but I’m afraid they’ve already been assessed and I’ll not permit a reassessment.’ That is just a hypothetical example. Of course, we know that the minister is somewhat attached to the orange-bellied parrot and that it is already on the list, so that would not happen, but it is an example. This creates a political situation where previously none existed. The minister may pick and choose which species to save and which species will become extinct according to his own decision. The government promotes this bill as cutting red tape when in fact it is making the minister a tin-pot Noah, picking and choosing which animals to save and which to leave to the ravages of his approved developments.

The fact that this bill is being rushed through without sufficient time for public comment shows that the government knows that the Australian people are concerned about it. The speech to the House by the member for Flinders, with his list of the government’s so-called achievements, is deserving of further scrutiny. Surely a government that claims to have such a strong environmental record would want time to consult with the conservation movement over such a far-reaching environmental bill. Surely a government that prides itself on having a strong environmental record would wish to take that record out to the community and have scrutiny of this bill and the provisions in it by the conservation movement.

We know that this government’s record on environmental protection is not good. In fact, it is poor. The way in which it is rushing this legislation through the parliament is evidence that it does not want scrutiny of its environmental record. It is trying to rush through a bill with major amendments that include the politicising of heritage listing processes and the assessment of threatened species without proper public consultation or investigation. Key stakeholders in environmental protection have not been consulted, nor has the government listened to their concerns. The government’s lack of consultation on the bill reflects the lack of consultative processes within the bill itself. By removing the review of matters of national significance which are currently the triggers under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, the government is getting rid of a major source of public input into environmental issues.

There has been no serious study accompanying this bill that looks at the impact of climate change on the Australian environment. The government has continually refused to ratify and implement the Kyoto protocols on climate change, despite the overwhelming evidence that climate change will continue to adversely affect our lives unless real action is taken. Instead of creating a bill that would have a real impact on reversing climate change, the government has hurriedly slapped together 409 pages of amendments to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act that completely ignore the No. 1 issue facing our environment. It now tries to ram them through this place with no regard for due diligence or public consultation, which is to be expected from an arrogant government that is systematically stripping consultation out of the processes of government. Again, the absolute danger in doing that was highlighted by the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills yesterday when it said specifically to the government, ‘This bill needs to go back to the drawing board.’ If the government ignores that advice from its committee, dominated by Liberal Party and coalition members, then it is absolutely failing the Australian community in establishing good protections for the Australian environment and its heritage.

One of the other things that is worth noting about this bill is that it contains a major backdown by the government on the National Heritage List. The National Heritage List is to no longer apply to places outside of Australia. The government went on with much chest-beating and fanfare that they were going to put Anzac Cove on the National Heritage List. This never happened. When I visited the site last year, the erosion from the government-agreed roadworks was devastating and there was much remedial action needed to restore the site. Anzac Cove has, in fact, been changed irrevocably by the roadworks at the site. The government made the promise to place it on the National Heritage List only to discover later that it was not possible for them to do so. What they have done with this bill is to basically say, ‘What we told the Australian community—that we would place it on the National Heritage List—is something that we will never ever actually do.’

To conclude, we face a worsening climate change problem. Water shortages, destroyed soil and mass extinctions of species are all part of the government’s environmental management legacy. This bill does nothing to address the problems facing our environment. Instead of taking in a wide consultation process and developing an effective strategy for dealing with environmental degradation, the government has slapped together 409 pages amendments to a bill that is failing to deliver any substantial outcomes. The bill gives the minister new, unscrutinised powers to approve developments. The minister will also be able to dismiss applications to protect species that have applied previously. The bill is unacceptable in its current form. It fails to protect the Australian environment; it fails to protect Australia’s heritage. I support the amendment moved by the member for Grayndler and ask the government to go back to the drawing board and introduce legislation that seeks to protect our natural environment against the ravages of climate change and preserves our heritage sites rather than subjecting them to greater pressure from developers and arbitrary decision-making from this minister.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to be able to make a contribution to this debate and to indicate my strong endorsement for the amendment moved by the member for Grayndler. Just to remind everyone, in case we need reminding, the purpose of this bill is to substantially amend the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 to make it more efficient and effective, to allow for the use of more strategic approaches and to provide greater certainty in decision-making.

This act is Australia’s primary law for the protection of the environment. It provides a framework for environmental protection and for any actions that are likely to have an impact on matters of national environmental significance. Given its importance, you would have thought that the government would have embarked upon an extensive process of consultation and dialogue with the community. You would have thought, given its importance, that the government would have sought out the interest groups that have been historically involved with the environmental issues across Australia, and communities with an involvement in environmental issues, to have a discussion and dialogue with them about its proposal to amend this piece of legislation. You would have thought so.

But, of course, we know that that has not been the case. We now have 409 pages of amendments in this place but no Bills Digest, and we are told that it will not be prepared for some time, so rushed and so important is this piece of legislation. I just wonder what it is that has triggered the rush to have this legislation in place. Why is it that we are debating this piece of legislation now and not in, say, March next year? When the person who represents the minister’s interests in this place comes in here to respond to the debate we are having this afternoon, maybe he will tells us what the trigger is. Maybe we will come to some understanding of why it is so important that we rush through this hastily gathered together bill which, as the previous speaker, the member for Ballarat, indicated, was condemned by the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills as recently as yesterday. We know that the view being expressed by the members of the government in the Senate is one that is mirrored by members of the opposition in the Senate and by members of the opposition here: that this piece of legislation is very shoddy, that it has many errors, we believe, in terms of what it proposes to do and that it is indicative of a government that clearly has decided that the arrogant way to do business is the best way to do business—that you do not really care about what others might have to say, apart from your friends in the corporate world, and that you have no real interest.

I note what Senator Johnston said about the explanatory memorandum to this legislation. I quote him; it is worth listening to. He said:

This explanatory memorandum is probably one of the most appalling I have ever seen in the short time I have been in the Senate. It discloses no motivation, no reasoning and no justification for some of the most draconian powers that this parliament can conceivably and possibly enact: rights of search and seizure without warrant, rights of personal frisking without warrant.

               …            …            …

... this legislation should go back to the drawing board.

I note that when we think of these issues and of the minister who is responsible, we know that he is not someone with a great record within government. Previous speakers have spoken about the issue of wind farms and about the minister attending the opening of a $300 million wind farm in China. It makes you wonder, doesn’t it? This is the same minister who prevented the establishment of wind farms in Australia. His actions portray the duplicitous way in which he administers this portfolio. He is clearly so popular that the member for Solomon, someone with whom I do not always—in fact, rarely—agree, had certain observations about the minister. In an interview on 8DDD FM, on the morning show of 28 September, the member for Solomon was asked what he thought of attempts by Minister for the Environment and Heritage to block the establishment of a crocodile safari hunting industry in the Northern Territory. I quote from what the member for Solomon said about a member of his own government, his own minister. He said:

We’ve got a federal environment minister who’s completely out of depth on this issue.

The bloke has proven himself to be a complete and utter dill on this issue.

I mean, Ian Campbell, he’s acting like a, like some sort of an itinerant drunk full of Dutch courage.

Maybe he is praising him, because I think there are people in the community who would say much harsher things about this minister for the way in which he has dealt with this portfolio and the way in which he is dealing with this piece of legislation.

But, of course, those of us who live in the Northern Territory understand how this minister really thinks about the environment, because, over the last 12 months, we in the Northern Territory, and in my seat of Lingiari in particular, have been subjected to one of the worst decisions that I have been unfortunate enough to witness in the time I have been a member of parliament, which goes back as far as 1987—that is, the decision to impose upon the Northern Territory nuclear waste facilities. Indeed, I think that is evidence enough of the government’s miserable track record on environment and heritage protection.

I have spoken in detail in the past in this place about the widespread opposition to the proposal by the government to choose one of three sites as possible sites for nuclear waste dumps. They are: Fishers Ridge, 47 kilometres from Katherine; Harts Range, 165 kilometres north-east of Alice Springs; and Mount Everard, 40 kilometres from Alice Springs up the Stuart Highway. This was done without any discussion or dialogue with the Northern Territory, let alone any agreement. The Commonwealth government decided that they needed a site because they had presumed they would have an outcome with Woomera in South Australia, but they were prevented from doing so by the South Australian government. They needed an alternative site, so what did they do? They got the Department of Defence to do a desktop survey of available land in the Northern Territory—that is, land that was available for use by Defence, or Commonwealth land—and they chose these three sites. There was no assessment as to their appropriateness or otherwise; they just chose them. There was no discussion with the local community, no discussion with the Northern Territory government and no discussion with anyone with an interest in the environment. They just chose the sites and said, ‘We’re going to do this because we can.’

That is why this minister and the government are dealing with this legislation in the way they are: because the government are so arrogant—they know they can, because they have the numbers in the Senate. They can put anything through in this place—that is, the parliament, this House and the other chamber—knowing full well that in 99.9 per cent of cases they will be successful in getting the legislation through. They are so arrogant that they do not want to involve the Australian community in any consideration of what they are proposing to do.

Prior to these announcements being made about nuclear waste facilities in the Northern Territory, Territorians might have expected some protection of their environment from actions such as this by the Howard government under the Commonwealth legislation, which we are amending today. What we know is that protection is no longer available for those people who are concerned about the proposed sites. The Commonwealth government can go ahead and build a waste dump that Territorians do not want—and that will be a significant blight on the environment and heritage of the Territory—because the government has blocked the operation of the EPBC Act and other legislation in relation to these dump sites.

How arrogant can you be? It is not a problem for this government, though—no problem at all. They do not mind jumping over the rights of the people of the Northern Territory for their own base political purposes. They do not mind doing that. They cannot do it anywhere else in Australia but they can do it there and, I might say, in the ACTwith not so much as a by-your-leave. The government have said: ‘If you think we are going to assess the sites against any reasonable environmental standards, forget it. The EPBC Act will not apply.’

I am getting sick and tired of this. I know that the people of the Northern Territory are fed up to the back teeth at the way they have been taken for granted by the government in relation to this issue. Let me just remind the House of section 6(1) of the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act 2005 which provides that:

The following laws have no effect to the extent that they would, apart from this section, regulate, hinder or prevent the doing of a thing authorised by section 4:

(a)

the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984;

(b)

the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.

The ‘doing of a thing authorised by section 4’, of course, covers a range of activities in preparation for the establishment of a nuclear waste dump. These activities include: gaining access to land to drive vehicles or fly aircraft to and from it; constructing roads on, or grading, land; constructing bores; operating drilling equipment; extracting water; collecting samples of flora and fauna; building structures to protect bores, monitoring equipment or other things; moving or extracting sand, gravel, soil, mineral and rock samples; and clearing vegetation.

These are activities that will obviously have a significant impact upon the environment of whichever site is finally chosen by the government for a nuclear waste dump. If the government really is committed to the EPBC Act and the protection of our environment, why did it choose to block its operation in relation to these sites? What validity can the EPBC Act be held to have in the future when, with a simple ministerial decision, its operation can be voided? Where the government sees the processes under this vital instrument for environmental protection as things that will either ‘hinder’ or ‘prevent’ some environmentally destructive policy it wants to foist on a certain community, it will simply, as it has done in this case, sidestep the act.

How can the minister introduce these proposed amendments and claim to support the EPBC Act and its objectives with any credibility? We know this government is prepared to trash this act whenever it feels so inclined, whenever it feels it needs to get its way. Of course, this has greater magnitude now. As we would be aware, we have seen clear signs from the government that it intends to embrace nuclear power. After his recalcitrant attitude on climate change—something which is not referred to in this legislation—and the refusal to sign up to Kyoto—

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

But deliver against the targets.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Climate change is a phenomenon which is now accepted. The very excitable young gentleman on the other side of the table, for whom I have some respect, clearly has decided that he is just going to jump up and down to the government tune on this.

Laurie Ferguson (Reid, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Consumer Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We know his private views.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, we do know his private views. I am sure they do not accord with the views which have been expressed by Senator Campbell. Mr Howard has come out and told us that nuclear is the only way forward for us in terms of climate change. The PM, on last Sunday’s Sixty Minutes, said:

I’m in favour of Australia developing nuclear power for peaceful purposes. It’s clean and green, and in an age where we’re worried about global warming, we should be looking seriously at nuclear power as an option ... and I can’t understand why the extreme greenies oppose it.

There are a lot of people in Australia who oppose the proposition that we might have nuclear power and they are not ‘extreme greenies’. They are simply informed, concerned Australian citizens. Using a pejorative term, hoping to describe them as ultra leftists, extreme greenies or whatever, will not wash.

But the decision for us in the Northern Territory has huge implications. Whether or not the Prime Minister and his ministerial colleagues propose to site a nuclear power generating facility in the Northern Territory is immaterial. What is material is that the waste from any generating facility will come to the Northern Territory. When we were told that this nuclear waste facility would come to the Northern Territory, the government described the waste that would be brought in as low-level nuclear waste. I want to refer the House to a ministerial statement made this week by Marion Scrymgour MLA, Minister for Natural Resources, Environment and Heritage in the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly. I commend this document to the House because what it does, in part, is expose the untruths which have been given to the Australian people, and particularly the people of the Northern Territory, about the question of what nuclear waste will be housed in these facilities, should they proceed.

Let us firstly talk about some of the waste. We are going to be getting back from France a whole lot of waste which has been sent over there by ANSTO under a contractual arrangement reached in 1999. In 1999 ANSTO, the operator of HIFAR, and COGEMA—now AREVA—the operator of the French plutonium factories at La Hague, signed a contract for the management of ANSTO’s research reactor’s spent fuel. The agreement envisaged the reprocessing of spent fuel from HIFAR as well as future spent fuel from the now approved replacement research reactor.

We are told by the government that the spent fuel rods will all come back to Australia in 2011. What we know is that, despite what we are told, ANSTO will continue to send shipments of spent fuel to France after 2011. COGEMA will continue to process it. The waste will continue to be returned to Australia. The return shipment of waste from spent fuel is scheduled under the contract to take place to 2015, not just to 2011. So the rush to impose these sites on the Northern Territory is based on a fib.

We need to know what sort of fuel we are talking about, and it is important that we understand this. It is not physically Australian waste material that will be returned. If you listen to the government, you would say we are getting a neat package of fuel sent back to us after it has been reprocessed. This is simply not the case. What we will get back will be a proportion of the by-product of spent fuel from every country that sends its waste to France for reprocessing, divided between the contributing countries. Each country of origin of the waste will receive a proportion of different elements from the reprocessing of the fuel. The main elements are vitrified fission product—high-level waste compacted residues, the hulls and end pieces from the metallic casings—and also high-level waste uranium and plutonium.

Let us understand this: after the reprocessing COGEMA, or AREVA, will get ownership of the recovered uranium. ANSTO, in Australia, gets back generic waste generated from the global reprocessing activities at the La Hague facility in France. La Hague reprocesses diversely sourced material, much from Russia but certainly from all over. The waste returned to Australia includes waste generated from all these sources and includes plutonium. We were not told that by this government.

We are now told this legislation will protect our interests environmentally. What we know is that we in the Northern Territory are going to be subjected to getting not only the world’s waste but, if the Commonwealth proceeds down the line of having nuclear generating facilities, all that waste product too. I can tell you, Mr Deputy Speaker, even though the EPBC Act does not apply to these sites in the Northern Territory, we are opposed to this and we believe the government should change its decision. (Time expired)

Harry Jenkins (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to oppose the Environment and Heritage Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006. It is regrettable that, in an area of public policy as important as the environment, we should see today a piece of legislation—409 pages to the principal bill, a bill that was introduced in this place last Thursday morning and a bill that the government expects to proceed through both chambers of the parliament by November—that has caused so much controversy in the short time that the community and the parliament have had to look at the ramifications of it. It is quite extraordinary that, in a very hectic legislative period, as the world moves on, pieces of legislation and the debate can change so quickly. Often there are things that are happening, not necessarily in this chamber, that affect the way in which the debate flows.

Yesterday, while this bill was being discussed in this place, in the Senate the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills tabled one of its regular reports. I have to admit to my colleagues from the other place I am not necessarily the greatest student of what goes on in the Senate, but it is instructive. The Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills has a look at every piece of legislation that comes before the Senate and has clear terms of reference under Senate standing order 24. Yesterday’s report commented on 10 groups of legislation. The whole report runs for 27 pages, 12 of which are devoted to the Environment and Heritage Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006.

I want to remind the House of one aspect of the second reading amendment moved by the honourable member for Grayndler on behalf of the opposition, and this is only one aspect. It states:

Having declined to give the second reading, the House expresses strong concern that:

(5)

many of the proposed changes in the bill will reduce Ministerial accountability and opportunities for genuine public consultation …

Littered through the comments of the scrutiny of bills committee we see comments about various clauses and aspects of the bill, saying they:

… may be considered to trespass unduly on personal rights and liberties, in breach of principle 1(a)(i) of the Committee’s terms of reference.

Principle 1(a)(i) simply says that the committee needs to look at whether the bill will trespass unduly on personal rights and liberties. At 1(a)(iv) there is a comment about inappropriately delegating legislative powers. Littered through the report are more comments about clauses that impinge on personal rights and liberties: powers to search without warrant and powers given—which the Senate committee believes should only be given to police officers—to various officials. The committee looks at schedule 2, part 2, subitem 42 and says:

... it may be considered to delegate legislative powers inappropriately, in breach of principle 1(a)(iv) ...

It is quite extraordinary that a bipartisan Senate committee should come to such conclusions on so many aspects of this bill—and this is not even the committee of the Senate that will be investigating the environment and heritage matters in the bill. So when that committee finally reports in November, goodness knows what comments are going to be made. It is just not good enough when you have a government senator concluding, in his contribution to the report by the scrutiny of bills committee, that this legislation should go back to the drawing board.

I am not aware of the arcane factional arrangements of the Liberal Party. I do not know whether Senator Johnston has got it in for Senator Ian Campbell or whatever. It is hard enough to keep up with the factional arrangements of my own party! The point is that when you get a comment like that there should be alarm bells ringing. There should be alarm bells ringing when a governing party, on so many fronts, has members of its own backbench querying the motives and reasons for pieces of legislation. Senator Johnston went on to say:

It discloses no motivation, no reasoning and no justification for some of the most draconian powers that this parliament can conceivably and possibly enact ...

Martin Ferguson (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Primary Industries, Resources, Forestry and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That’s from a Liberal.

Harry Jenkins (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That was from a Liberal about this piece of legislation. We have seen this sort of thing so often. I know it is a worry, but I am even starting to watch the debates in the Senate because they are quite intriguing. When I left to come down to this chamber they were discussing the Trade Practices Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2005, which was debated in this chamber yesterday, and it was quite instructive.

People might dismiss members of the National Party in the Senate as only being members of the junior coalition party, but they are still members of the coalition. They are still raising some interesting questions. The government in the Senate has to depend upon the Independents—the smaller parties—and now questions are being raised about the motivations of the smaller parties. On the assumption that the government, in its arrogance, will not understand the virtue of pulling the bill at this stage so that it does not progress through this chamber, when it goes to the Senate and there is a debate it will not only be restless people on their own backbench who are looking at the piece of legislation; the minor parties will also be looking at it.

That is an indication of the lack of discipline of the government and of their haziness and lack of focus. It is a further indication of the way in which so often in recent times the government have been on the back foot. As you would know, I place great importance upon what a national government sets out to achieve for the environment. I think we should consider the environment in the widest context. It needs to be done with a whole-of-government view and in a way which embraces the community. Businesses of all sizes should be involved and members of the community should be involved and encouraged. But when you pick up the Melbourne Age of today, on page 7 you read a headline: ‘Fed up with inaction: Pratt gives up on his water crusade’.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Hunt interjecting

Harry Jenkins (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What the member for Flinders, in his great enthusiasm, should always remember is that, no matter what the states and territories do, the federal government has an onus to perform and to show leadership. It is not good enough for so many people, on behalf of the federal government, to blame others, because the environmental challenges that confront this nation do not require a timid approach—that somebody else should be doing it; it is somebody else’s fault. The challenges require courage and decisiveness. The member for Flinders cannot scurry away, because he knows that the criticisms by Dick Pratt are of all governments—not just state and territory governments. There is something lacking in the way in which the federal government would try to influence this.

It is not the case, in any way, that somebody should just get up and crow, ‘Well, I did my bit.’ What is the Prime Minister doing? Is the Prime Minister on side? Is the Prime Minister actually giving support for these proposals? The real problem is that we have this lack of focus; we have to have the point scoring—‘It’s always somebody else’s fault; it’s not our legislation that is dictating behaviour.’ We woke up to discussion of media ownership, and because everybody is talking before the proclamation of the bill, it is to do with the previous legislation. What the Prime Minister should be doing is not just acting like some spin master, in some audition to replace CJ Cregg in the West Wing; he should be getting down to the business that is involved, and discussing the elements, not just the spin. He has to take the leadership role and show the decisive action, the big picture, not just give this timid reaction.

We can bet that, when the next State of the environment report comes out, it will yet again be a report on the state of the degradation of our environment. That is simply not good enough. At a time when the debate on climate change is moving into the next phase, it will possibly not just be about reaching the present targets but might lead to a challenge to governments throughout the world to revise those targets upwards. If we are failing in our endeavours to reach the targets at the present time, what is going to happen if the IPCC comes out and says that the targets should be ratcheted upwards, which is a possibility?

Again, I know that I have emphasised the role of the Senate in this speech, but Senator Heffernan is coming out and saying that he wants to transplant agricultural processes to other parts of the continent. The real key is that, regrettably, if climate change rolls on, that may have to be one of the considerations—and that will come at a high economic cost, which will have to be balanced over those things that we do not take into account when we are looking at issues like climate change. This really is the challenge. To have a piece of legislation like the one we are debating today—with 409 pages and not a mention of climate change, not an indication that we have to move on—is of really great concern. It does not show that the government is properly focused on those things that confront us directly now, not in a sense that we have to worry about them in the future.

It is appropriate that the EPBC Act be reviewed. But if you are going to do it, do it with a transparent method—take some time about it. If the government are fair dinkum about the review, they should take their time, they should embrace outside comment, they should move in a way that could encourage a bipartisan decision about any ways in which the act could be made more efficient. If that is the reason for this bill, let us be fair dinkum. But there are a lot of aspects of this bill that are not about simply the efficiency and effectiveness of the act; they are about changing the way in which decisions are made; they are about giving greater power to the minister; they are about politicising, even to a greater extent, decisions about environmental matters. It has been said by a number of my colleagues in this debate that we thought in Australia that we had moved on from that. We thought that we had moved on from environmental decisions, heritage decisions, being made on the basis of nudge, nudge, wink, wink. We are starting to see concerns that we are returning to that.

I know that, down in Gippsland, the issue of wind power and wind turbines has been a very controversial subject. I know that, in the run-up to the last federal election, it did have some influence on the electorate’s decision-making. But the way in which this environment minister of the Howard government has made a decision to intervene in decisions on wind turbines, like the Bald Hills example, is quite extraordinary.  The real concern is that, if we have further decisions like that, they will devalue the credibility of environmental processes and environmental decision-making and all aspects of environmental impact. We just cannot pluck out reasons for the minister to intervene and for the minister to be able to make a decision that does not have the ability to be challenged. That is just going back to the dim Dark Ages.

It is clear that we should not be having debates about environmental matters on a controversial basis. There is a plea that is made by this side of the House that we lessen the political interference, that we make the processes transparent. Why, if we are saying this is simply for efficiency and effectiveness, should the ability of third parties to intervene be taken out of the present act? There are often very good reasons why people who have a third-party interest should have the ability to discuss the decisions that are being made about these types of matters.

What is happening with this legislation is a move away from a full discussion, a full system of decision making, to a very narrow system of decision making. The confidence of the community will be further fractured because of this. The confidence of the community in being able to agree to these measures that they are going to have to use to confront the major environmental problems of this nation will be fractured. It will actually be trashed. We need the cooperation of the community if we are going to get effective measures in place to combat climate change and to combat the way in which the lack of water in this continent is so changing our lifestyles. I hope the government will reconsider and withdraw this bill. (Time expired)

Martin Ferguson (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Primary Industries, Resources, Forestry and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to follow the member for Scullin, my neighbour in northern Melbourne, in making a contribution to this important debate. At the outset I want to say on behalf of the opposition that we agree there is very much a need to review the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. It is very important that there is a legislative framework in Australia that actually works in terms of how we protect our environment. Firstly, we have an extra responsibility to protect Australia’s unique environment and heritage. Secondly, in protecting it, it is the responsibility of the legislators to provide an appropriate framework that allows for sustainable development in Australia in a timely way. We have to be able to do both: protect our environment while also creating a situation that guarantees economic growth and development in Australia.

For that reason it is very disappointing that the Howard government has paid so little regard to providing adequate time for the parliament, the states and territories and other stakeholders in the community to properly consider the legislation before the House this afternoon, the Environment and Heritage Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006. There are over 900 items to be considered in this bill. The bill has been referred to a Senate committee, but members of the House are being asked to debate the bill without the benefit of the committee process and certainly without the benefit of a proper review period. The legislation was introduced on Thursday of last week, as the intent of the government was to complete the debate on Thursday of this week. The bill goes to 409 pages. How could any member of the House have had sufficient time to properly consider the range of amendments provided for in the bill before the House?

I would simply say that it is groundhog day when it comes to this bill. Part of the reason we need 900 amendments is that the bill for the original EPBC Act was rushed through the parliament—and we should remember this bit of history—back in 1999 on the back of a grubby little deal between the Democrats and the government. Let us not forget that this deal was the one that reduced the Commonwealth’s powers over environment and heritage protection, gave Australians the GST, and started the process that delivered today’s extreme industrial relations laws and took away the hard-won rights of working Australians. That is the history to this bill. It is not a stand-alone bill; it was part of a grubby little deal to get the GST and industrial relations changes through the Senate.

I think we are lucky that every state and territory today is governed by the Labor Party. We are yet to feel the true impact of the Commonwealth’s abrogation of environmental responsibility to state and local levels in this country. Having said that, working with the states and territories is definitely the way to go on the issue of environment and heritage, in association with the private sector—but not in the absence of national leadership and not in the absence of an ability to get things done at a national level when an impasse or a critical need arises. As my colleague the member for Rankin said last night:

… the government has not got the guts to take on the issue of water allocations and move to permanent trading in water rights.

The fact is we should not have legislation that allows the Commonwealth at any time or on any matter of national significance to do a Pontius Pilate and say, ‘There is nothing I can do; it is the fault of the states and territories.’ We hear that all the time from the Howard government. The government consistently abrogates its responsibility when it comes to national leadership, and Australia is the poorer for it in many ways. We have an energy market in name only, no progress on the Murray-Darling, the absolute squandering—that is what it is—of $248 billion of the $263 billion windfall of the last four budgets, no investment in the country’s productive future and no serious investment, at a time when we can afford it, in proper, pragmatic and practical environmental reform.

As I have obviously had little choice but to say on so many occasions during the term of this parliament, the ramming through of this bill with less than a week’s notice is yet another example of the government’s tardiness, its lack of commitment to the legislative program and its disrespect for the parliament and the people we represent. In the end, governments are made and broken in the House of Representatives. This is where government is formed, not in the Senate. To expect us to seriously consider this bill without proper notice is an absolute disgrace. It goes to the arrogance of the government and its contempt for legislative process with respect to the workings of the House of Representatives. It sends a serious warning to the Australian community that this government is now more concerned about preserving its electoral advantage than doing the hard work that makes Australia so attractive for investment and so important in the international debate about preserving our environment and heritage.

I note also that there appears to have been very little, if any, consultation with the states and territories or other stakeholders, with the exception of a small number of industry representatives and states who are immediately affected by some of the changes embodied in the bill. This is not a good look for the government. It is not a good look if we want to work with business to attract investment as well as preserve our environment and heritage. It is also not a good look for industry.

It undermines the integrity of the legislative process and the community’s confidence in it. It also undermines the reputation of some sections of industry and the standards of good corporate citizenship and good governance which it claims to observe. For that reason I support the second reading amendment by the opposition that this House appropriately expresses its strong concerns that this bill has rushed through parliament without proper consideration or consultation and therefore call on the House to allow a greater time for public consultation and debate on the bill.

This is a reasonable request. I hope that members on both sides of the House will have the decency to have regard to the second reading amendment to secure our legislative right to a proper parliamentary process and, in doing so, show respect for the people we represent. They expect that we have time to do our job. The government has gone out of its way with respect to this bill—over 400 pages and 900 separate items—to ram it through parliament as quickly as possible. That is when you make mistakes not only with respect to the requirement to protect our environment and heritage but also with respect to the workings of the bill and its purpose to create a legislative framework which guarantees investment in substainable development in Australia. You cannot separate one from the other.

I will go to some elements of the bill. Obviously, some of them have merit and I am not just going to can the bill for the sake of attacking the government. There is good and bad in this bill. We can also express our appreciation to the Public Service for the huge amount of work in drafting. It is about reducing red tape in approvals processes and hoping to improve the ability to enforce compliance—that is to be commended. For example, subject to further and proper consideration I cautiously welcome the amendments that strengthen the provisions relating to illegal fishing and bring the EPBC Act into line with the Fisheries Management Act. I say ‘cautiously’ because I have not—and neither has anybody else in the House—had time to properly seek legal and other relevant advice as to whether the amendments will do what is claimed.

Similarly, I cautiously welcome the introduction of strict liability with respect to damage caused to World Heritage properties, national heritage places, Ramsar wetlands, threatened species and communities and so on. This appears to remove the need to demonstrate recklessness or intent to cause damage to effect a prosecution. The extending of liability under the act to make corporations, non-corporate principals and employers liable for actions taken on their behalf also appears appropriate.

When it comes to the approvals process, I welcome some streamlining of the bilateral agreement processes to get rid of unnecessary red tape and duplication and provide certainty for investors in the development of Australia. But that streamlining must not compromise our ability to properly protect our unique environment and heritage. They are inseparable. Again, I cannot be entirely certain without the benefit of a proper review process and period that the measures in the bill are appropriate. This is a first reading on my behalf.

My colleagues have expressed some reservation about changes to the third party appeal provisions in this bill. To be fair, most Australians would agree that, while we all expect ministers to make decisions in full accordance with the acts of this parliament and we all support appeal provisions to ensure that this is the case, it is less clear that the vast majority of Australians support the right of a limited number of special interest groups to bring actions against the minister every other week to try and overturn decisions reasonably made within the law. That is the balance we have to get within this legislation. Some changes are needed to limit the opportunity for repeatedly vexatious appeals to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. I put it to the House that if the government had properly consulted and shared with members of this House the history of appeals made under the EPBC Act—the appellants, the cases, the outcomes—there may well be greater acceptance of the need for changes proposed in this bill. It is about due process and proper consultation.

The same thing applies when it comes to changes to the EPBC Act, which I support, that mean that plaintiffs will lose their specific exemption under the act to provide undertakings for damages when applying for interim injunctions. Plaintiffs will now have the same rights as under any other legislation or when taking civil proceedings with the Federal Court holding the discretion to not require undertakings for damages when it comes to interim injunctions. This is a fair and reasonable change.

For too long I contend that special interest groups have been able to freely indulge, in some instances, in repeatedly vexatious actions at great time, expense and delay to proponents. In most cases the interim injunctions granted have not stood the test of judicial scrutiny. Under the EPBC Act, it is my understanding that only two injunctions have been successful: one which related to the Nathan Dam in Queensland and the other to the killing of bats to protect an orchard development. In both cases, it is highly likely that the courts would have concluded that it was in the public interest to grant the injunctions and exempt the plaintiffs from any undertakings.

In the vast majority of cases it is reasonable to conclude that the exemption in the act had not been advancing the national interest but had been used for vexatious purposes by special interest groups and had created unnecessary uncertainty for important investment in Australia. This is a concern many of my portfolio constituents in resources, energy and forestry have raised with me in the short time that the bill has seen the light of day.

Similarly, my colleague the member for Rankin raised a related concern in this debate last night when he rightly pointed out that the environment movement adopted a tactic dating back to the 1980s to put as many areas as possible on the Register of the National Estate in Tasmania. The Australian Heritage Commission, inundated with listing requests and not properly resourced to assess them, adopted the precautionary principle and listed pretty much everything. That was a vexatious use of the heritage listing process in the hope that the environmentalists could achieve the protection of all national estate areas. That was never our intent in terms of doing the right thing by our environment and heritage in Australia.

The net effect of this is that we have a national estate list and a listing process for heritage and environment with much diminished status because of those vexatious actions in the past. I hope the environmental NGOs are proud of themselves for achieving this. I think it is a disgrace.

The changes to listing processes proposed in this bill are intended to address the kinds of flaws referred to above. But obviously they have gone too far. Where the act was previously silent, Senator Ian Campbell has now made sure that, as with the case of the Bald Hills wind farm and the orange-bellied parrot, he can now, unfortunately, politicise at any time and on any grounds. That is going too far.

The amendments to listing processes that allow the minister to seek and have regard to information or advice from any source are a bridge too far. This does not address the credibility of a person providing advice—for example, whether or not the person has appropriate qualifications or standing. It does not pass the test of reasonableness in terms of the types of matters that could perhaps be considered such as economic, social and environmental factors.

Obviously, this is a complex issue and a complex bill. It has to be considered in a properly focused, calm and constructive way. But the government has created an environment which has led to a motion on the way this bill is actually being considered in the House this week. The members of the House have not had an appropriate opportunity to go away and seriously consider the 900-odd proposals actually embodied in the bill for changes to what is a complex act in the first instance.

I mentioned other matters that perhaps could be considered, because it is my view that the competition between industry and heritage should not be addressed through an argument over whether to list or not to list. The real issue, and our responsibility, is to recognise that we can have multiple land use values of listed places that should be properly managed through the use of regulation, statutory management plans and conditions on development. There are a variety of ways to actually achieve what we all desire—that is, the protection of our environment and heritage.

There is no doubt in my mind that those places with really special environment and heritage values—and, in my view, the Burrup Peninsula, for example, is one of those—should be properly listed and recognised for those values. But that is not to say that we are not having development on the Burrup. We actually need development on the Burrup because it is the key to a lot of our export earnings in Australia at the moment. It is also potentially the key to our transport security if we are able to get serious about the gas-to-liquids debate in Australia.

There is also no doubt in my mind, having said that, that if heritage places have other very special values—for example, nationally significant economic and strategic values—it is my view that when it comes to the Burrup Peninsula there is a need to find a way to protect those values as well and guarantee investment and economic development. I am personally satisfied that with goodwill on all sides this can be achieved. We can have multiple land use values and we can manage them properly so that heritage is protected but sustainable economic growth that underpins our national wealth can also still occur.

I have talked about the vexatious use of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Act a lot today, and the Burrup Peninsula, as I have said, provides a good example of this. Whilst I have heard some reports from defenders of rock art on the Burrup that 30 per cent of the Burrup’s heritage sites will be put at risk by Woodside’s proposed Pluto development, mapping of the area proposed for listing and the development site clearly shows that the Pluto development will in fact occupy just a fraction of one per cent of the rock art area.

It is also about time that people told the truth about what is actually happening in some of these areas that are so sensitive in terms of the debate surrounding this bill this afternoon. Let us have a factual debate rather than an emotional debate on some of these key issues. It is time that we stopped some of the scaremongering and told the truth. We actually want to do the right thing by the environment; we also want to do the right thing by our economy. That is the balance that is intended in this act.

The government has created great difficulty in having a proper debate on those issues because of the way in which it has handled this bill. It was just plain arrogant to table last week a bill of over 400 pages and with 900 proposed amendments and then to seek to have it rammed through the House of Representatives—the people’s parliament—by the end of today. It is contemptuous of the Prime Minister, the cabinet and the coalition party room. It shows no regard for their own coalition partners, especially the backbenchers, who have to consider these issues, and the 150 constituencies that make up the House of Representatives. The government itself has created in the mind of the Australian community a serious question about the integrity of this bill because of the way it has sought to short-circuit the debate and stop proper due process and consideration.

The bill has been about four years in coming. Why does it therefore have to be rammed through the House of Representatives in one week? There is no good reason for that approach to legislative change in Australia. We are about proper management practices in Australia. We are about proper management practices that protect our environment and heritage. I simply say this: regardless of the merits of many amendments in this bill, there are too many orange-bellied parrot amendments for my liking. I therefore join the opposition in opposing the bill, but I also say that there is a need for a review of the act. The problem is that the government has got the process wrong and has now created in the mind of the Australian community the idea that there is no legitimacy to the bill before the House. (Time expired)

Gavan O'Connor (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I commend the honourable member for Batman for his contribution to this debate. Always it is a considered contribution and one that pulls no punches. I rise to oppose the Environment and Heritage Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006. I support the second reading amendment moved by the member for Grayndler which encapsulates in the broadest sense what is dreadfully wrong with this flawed piece of legislation that is now before the House. The second reading amendment moved by the member for Grayndler expresses strong concern that:

(1)

the bill is being rushed through the Parliament without proper consideration or consultation;

(2)

the Howard Government has failed to halt the decline in Australia’s natural environment and best agricultural land;

(3)

the bill contains no measures to cut Australia’s spiralling greenhouse pollution or protect Australia from dangerous climate change;

(4)

the bill will increase the Howard Government’s politicisation of environment and heritage protection; and

(5)

many of the proposed changes in the bill will reduce Ministerial accountability and opportunities for genuine public consultation;

and therefore calls on the Howard Government to:

(6)

ensure climate change is properly factored into environmental decision making under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (the Act);

(7)

establish a climate change trigger in the Act to ensure large scale greenhouse polluting projects are assessed by the Federal Government; and

(8)

allow greater time for public consultation and debate on the bill”—

A central question has to be asked about this particular piece of legislation: will these streamlined procedures and amendments addressing claims of duplication of processes, insufficient flexibility and scope, ambiguities, anomalies and lack of certainty maintain at the end of the day a high level of protection for the environment? That is a fundamental question, because the government has come into this place with an extremely complex bill that we have not had adequate time to consider and, of course, we must match the amendments in this legislation against some very important benchmarks that the Australian community wants in place to protect the Australian environment.

I note the presence in the chamber of the honourable member for Corangamite—Captain Zero, as we know him in the Western District. I would have thought that the honourable member for Corangamite, being a grazier from the Western District, would have had some regard for process. He has been in this parliament long enough to understand that good legislation only comes from good consideration and debate, and we have not had it in this instance. I will make sure that the people of Geelong are aware of the fact that the honourable member for Corangamite is attempting, along with his colleagues, to ram a piece of legislation through this parliament without due process—the sort of due process that his constituents and mine in the Geelong area demand of us in this place. They do not ask for it; when a significant piece of legislation comes before this particular parliament, they demand that the honourable member for Corangamite and the honourable member for Corio, as representatives, do our duty by them and allow sufficient time for consideration of these lofty issues.

The Environment and Heritage Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006 seeks to amend in a substantial way the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, which commenced operation in 2000. This particular legislation forms the centrepiece of Australian law relating to the environment. The bill we are debating here today is acknowledged by the government—not just by us; in the explanatory memorandum it is acknowledged by the government—that this is ‘the first comprehensive attempt to define the environmental responsibilities of the Australian government’. If it is the first comprehensive attempt to do it and we have a piece of legislation that is 409 pages long, with an enormous number of amendments, why is the government ramming this legislation through this parliament?

In the explanatory memorandum, the government goes on to say:

... enables the Australian Government to join with the States and Territories in providing a truly national scheme of environmental protection and biodiversity conservation.

This is a major piece of Commonwealth legislation. The bill contains 409 pages of amendments and the government’s own explanatory memorandum runs to 117 pages. This is indeed a complex piece of legislation. It is highly technical and it has far-reaching consequences for stakeholders, whether they are developers, farmers, environmentalists, communities, state and territory governments or private or public companies. It is legislation that is of great concern and consequence to the Australian people. Given all of this, why has the Howard government so abused the parliamentary and public consultation process to ram this bill through this parliament in this way?

Previous speakers on this side of the House, the opposition, have acknowledged that there are parts of this legislation worthy of some support, but they can only be supported if we as the opposition are given enough time to consider the detail of the bill, seek out expert advice on the technical aspects of the legislation, have sufficient time to engage in meaningful discussion with stakeholders and have sufficient time to internally reach a considered view on aspects of the bill. If the opposition are permitted to go through those processes, the government knows that at the end of the day and in the interests of the Australian people we will agree with it on the matters which we think ought to be supported by the Australian people.

I notice that the Prime Minister has entered the chamber to grace us with his presence at question time. I think there are people in the gallery who would like to know why the Prime Minister and his government are seeking to ram this piece of legislation through this parliament. It is legislation that was four years in the making and is the most significant piece of environmental legislation in Australia’s history, and the Prime Minister, his cabinet and his colleagues on the back bench are ramming it through this parliament without adequate time for consultation and discussion. Let it be a matter on the public record that the opposition have not had sufficient time to assess the impacts of this legislation on stakeholders or the environment.

Given the lofty objectives of the bill and their significance, I would have thought that good governance and appropriate democratic practice would have dictated a different approach by the government to this legislation. This 409-page bill has been dumped on the opposition at short notice. I have requested a Bills Digest from the library but I have been informed that one will not be available for two weeks, long after the debate has taken place in the House. As I understand it, no comprehensive briefing on the detail and the implications of the bill has been provided to the opposition by the minister’s department. The debate will occur well before Labor has had the opportunity to consult with key stakeholders or consider their evidence before the Senate committee that is scheduled to inquire and hold hearings into this bill. This is an absolute abuse of power and process, and it is the mark of an arrogant government that cares little now for proper parliamentary process and scrutiny and even less for good democratic practice.

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! It being 2.00 pm, the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 97. The debate may be resumed at a later hour and the member will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.